


Tallahassee

by PBJellie



Category: South Park, Tallahassee (Album), The Mountain Goats (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Arguing, Bad Parenting, F/M, Married Couple, NaNoWriMo, Non-Linear Narrative, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Parent-Child Relationship, Really mild suicidal thoughts, Romance, Suicidal Thoughts, unedited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-08-14 14:36:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 50,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16494494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PBJellie/pseuds/PBJellie
Summary: Snapshots of Randy and Sharon's relationship through a collection of interconnected short stories.





	1. Tallahassee

**Author's Note:**

> This years entry into NaNoWriMo. It's a lot different from last year, and is Randy and Sharon centric. It's a collection of related short stories set to the album Tallahassee from The Mountain Goats. You will understand the fic without the album, but it's a great album. They're not linear, and they're not all from the same point of view, but they are all the same universe. 
> 
> As is usually the case with NaNoWriMo, I'm not editing this, not that I really edit to start with. 
> 
> Enjoy.

It was good to be separated. Randy was bad for her. Everyone knew they were a mismatch of personalities. He was brash and impulsive and a hopeless lush. He was a disaster, and she was, well what was she? 

She was Sharon Marsh, but she supposed once the divorce was finalized she wouldn't be her anymore, either. She had been Mrs. Marsh for the bulk of her adult life. Fourteen years of being Sharon Marsh. How could she be anyone else? 

She was calm. She was the calm in the middle of the crazy storm that was Randy, the one her kids had to weather on a day to day basis. The guy who microwaved his balls in order to get medical marijuana. She married that man. She had thought it a good idea at the time. It had seemed smart to go and hitch her horse to that wagon.

The snow fluttered down onto her red sweater. She should have grabbed a coat, but it was impossible to find one. She had outsourced labeling the boxes for moving. Shelly didn't label whether it was winter clothes or summer clothes in the large cardboard boxes strewn about their new apartment. 

She shook her shoulders, rubbing her arms together against her chest protectively. Her hands weren't warm, it wasn't warming her any. She sighed, walking past a boarded up drug store. Once upon a time, back before her entire world had crumbled into disarray, she could have ducked into their heat. For the low price of a candy bar, or a pack of tampons, she could have thawed out her fingers.

But that store didn't exist anymore. That time didn't exist anymore either. Inevitably, she'd have walked into the store, then been horrified as the cashier asked if she was married to Mr. Marsh. Did you know Mr. Marsh is outside with the neighbor kids shooting at them with a potato gun, teaching them how to dodge. Did you know he got the McCormick boy smack in the face? Did you? It looks like it's going to scar. 

A smile ghosted her lips as she realized she'd never have to deal with that level of insanity again. She's not his keeper anymore. She's not anyone's keeper. 

Besides Stan and Shelly, but they're back at the apartment, sifting through their things and arranging their room as they saw fit. Room, singular. That wasn't the intention. She hadn't intended to saddle her two children with a shared room, but the rents were too high for her receptionists job to cover a three bedroom. A two bedroom was tight, as it stood, and that was somewhat dependent on Randy paying some kind of child support.

And she knew that nothing about Randy was dependable. He wasn't living anywhere, as far as she knew. There was no address given to her the last time she dropped the kids off with him at a nearly abandoned park on the outskirts of town. Stark's would be too public, too much of a scene.

Not that anything could stay under wraps in this small town for more than a few days. Linda already looked at her sullenly as she waved from the waiting room. She was a chronic patient. A chronic patient that came into the office every two weeks or so to get a shot here or an ounce removed there. Linda was dependable.

And it was dependable that she'd overhear the gossip between Linda and Sheila as they discussed PTA plans. It was unavoidable. Hushed whispers about a lack of sexual satisfaction, some rumored shortcomings on her part. And to top it all off, she'd managed to eavesdrop into the conversation at the worst possible time. She only caught the tail end on the dirt on herself, but heard five gruesome minutes of how Sheila keeps things fresh. 

Sharon was sure, by the sound of it, that things for Gerald were very fresh. She retched in her mouth the next time she saw him. He was unassuming, pushing a cart of groceries through Walmart, looking unimpressed by the selection of apples. For starters, they had four types, which to Sharon was arguably too many, and to follow that up, all she could think of was Gerald dressed as the post man with Sheila's fat thighs clenching his head. 

The image still haunted her, as she looked out to the movie theater. She told the kids she was going to pop in and out for some groceries. They were out of milk, because Stan had dropped the whole carton onto the carpeted bit between the kitchen and their living room. And due to the spill, they were also entirely out of paper towels, as the bath towels were nowhere to be found. 

If they ever moved again, Shelly would not be doing the packing. 

She could see a movie. They were old enough to fend for themselves for a few hours. Mid afternoon on a Saturday, how much trouble could they get into? Sharon chuckled to herself as she waved politely at the neck bearded teenager sitting in the kiosk. Three hours was probably enough time for Shelly to find and try on all of her make-up, leaving the powers and pastes strewn across the bathroom counter. It was also certainly enough time for Stan to cook up something awful with the neighbor kids. 

She supposed they weren't the neighbor kids anymore. Maybe he could make new friends, that could be good for him. None of the boys on their street were a good influence, anyways, save Kyle. And all Kyle was good for was making him study by proximity. 

Yes, new friends would certainly be good for him. She should have moved further to change school districts. She shouldn't have been so afraid of leaving this crummy town with it's abandoned buildings and gossipy hillbillies. Stability was good for the children, she told herself. The familiar setting will make the transition less scary.

There was nothing stable about this town. Not a thing. Not even the mountains were stable. Normal mountains didn't occasionally turn into volcanoes, only to go back to normal the next week. She could have moved to Denver, let the kids go to a place with real culture. Hell, she could have moved to Arizona. She could have saved herself from an eternity of this powdery white crap that kept falling onto her sweater.

No movies, not today. Maybe another day, maybe in another town. It wasn't too late to leave. She'd only signed a six month lease. Six months wasn't that long, not really. It wasn't enough time for Randy to get his act together. Six years wouldn't have been enough either. There is no time frame you can put on that kind of thing. When a man makes it to his mid thirties, and behaves the way he does, there's not much you can do. You can wait for him to turn into a bitter old man like his father and you the harpy from his fathers stories, or you can move out and live in an apartment on the outskirts of town. 

Sometimes, like now, she wonders if it would have been good to wait. Maybe she'd enjoy herself as the villain to all of his stories. It'd be a different role than the one she played now. Role of the meek woman who walks into grocery store, head ducked, searching for milk. 

Fuck, what else did she need? Definitely milk, but there was something else wasn't there? She walked past a great big Christmas tree, a cheap cardboard cutout, with a placard asking her if she's gotten her ham for Christmas dinner. Do single people make Christmas dinner? She hadn't been single since nineteen. She wasn't sure what single people did and didn't do. The single people in South Park were bad examples. 

She drifted through the store aimlessly, despite her need for milk, and was it chips? Were they out of chips? She eyed the display, a few of the bags facing the wrong way, showing only the nutritional facts and a photo shopped image of a potato sprouting out of the dirt, but somehow still fully formed. She knew enough about potatoes, from one of Randy's phases where he was certain they were going to live off the land. 

Some book told him that he could grow enough food for a hundred people in their backyard. She had her suspicions that he didn't even read the book. That he just skimmed the back, read the blurb with the mind blowing fact about the size of the average backyard, and decided he knew better than everyone else involved.

Of course, he did. Of course Randy knew more than a botanist, or a farmer, whoever it was who wrote that book. He knew more, because he was a geologist. She wouldn't understand, she didn't even graduate. How could she ever hope to understand. 

She snatched a bag of chips, with glancing at the saturated fat content before deciding that it didn't matter. It's not like she had someone to keep in shape for. There was no purpose to her dieting now. She could let herself go. She could eat whatever she wanted and hell, if she felt like it, stop waxing her eyebrows and upper lip.

She headed to the check out, chips cradled in her arms. She flipped the bag, making sure they were the regular variety, not reduced salt, or sour cream and onion. Just plain chips. She liked things plain. She thought she was getting into a plain thing, way back. She was marrying a guy who was a bit of a lush, but overall nice. He was thoughtful. The drive to Vegas had been thoughtful. Not that the trip had gone well, it hadn't. It ended in a firestorm of Randy vomiting in the motel sink as she took the toilet.

She opted for the self checkout, scanning her chips over the red scanner light three times before they finally took. Once the machine beeped, she made a move to sack them in a translucent plastic bag, only to scan them, yet again. The machine said she had two bags of chips and kept repeating to put the item in the bagging area as she looked around the area for a clerk. 

What was the point of self checkout if she still had to talk with a person? 

"What seems to be the problem, ma'am?" A man, a boy, asked. He was probably somewhere between the two, with a look of general disinterest painted onto his face. She knew that look well. 

"The chips," she said, waving at the screen.

"Yeah, they're chips," the employee groaned, like she was being so difficult. Like it was ridiculous to ask for the second chip bag removed. Like she had just shot down his idea to get drunk as hell at a Little League game and fight to the death with another equally intoxicated man.

"There's two," she sighed, turning to look at the man fully. He was a man, she decided, upon second glance. He had a patchy goatee, and a gut that pushed at his belt. 

"Okay?" He asked, rolling his eyes as she stood there. "You got two bags of chips?" 

"No!" She yelled. She wasn't an idiot. Making bad life decisions didn't make her an idiot. Maybe her wrong choices were a bit more serious than his mullet, but who was he to judge? He wasn't anybody. She didn't even know him. "I have one bag of chips," she reiterated. 

"The screen says two," he droned, looking at something that resembled a Palm Pilot. She hadn't seen one of those in ages, since before Stan went to elementary school, at least. "There's no need to yell."

She could think of lots of reasons to yell. Loads.

"But I only have one," she said again, clenching her jaw and squeezing her stomach inward to keep control of herself. "The screen says two, and I only have one." 

"Why didn't you just say that?" He leaned forward, reeking of Axe, the same type Stan made her buy. He smelled like he used as much, too. 

"I did say that," she hissed, digging for her card as the man punched in a security code. Before he entered the last half, he looked back, eyebrows raised. Like he expected her to be memorizing a ten digit pin and another five digit password to get free chips. He continued as she averted her eyes to a mural on the wall, a family, a man and a woman, smiling and eating strawberries as their kids sat calmly at the table. 

Life wasn't like that. She swiped her card as soon as she was able, not bothering to see if the clerk was trying to memorize her pin. Good luck getting anything from her checking account. Divorce wasn't a cheap endeavor. Not that she thought it would be, she just wasn't expecting all the hidden fees. She wasn't expecting a six hundred dollar security deposit for an apartment, or the cost of getting her car insurance separately, not to mention the full cost of the lawyer.

She was fairly certain the Randy had Gerald representing him for free. 

She huffed, snatching her receipt and the one bag of chips as she raced out of the store. She cast the man one last disapproving glace, shaking her head while looking at him, before the doors slid open. They were slow enough that she nearly ran into them, but luckily she froze in place as the cold air rushed in. She wasn't ready to go find her car in the snow and the wind. She should have just driven. She shouldn't have taken Sheila's advice of fresh air making her feel better. 

Sheila didn't look like she'd ever taken a walk. Like she knew anything about exercise and sunlight. Like there was any sunlight in December. Instead of being refreshed, she was annoyed and cold with her bag of chips, wondering if that was the real reason she'd come to the store. 

She walked like a zombie through the streets. She was familiar enough to skip the broken pieces of sidewalk and the manhole covers without looking. She wouldn't have that in Denver, or Arizona. She wouldn't have that anywhere but here. Deftly, she lifted her foot to avoid a stray piece of concrete pushed up by the roots of one of the trees that lined main street.

Surely, that was valuable. Also, surely it was valuable to be able to go back to your car on autopilot. Sometimes it was nice to not have to think. Most time, actually, most times it was nice. Maybe it was for the best that Randy got the degree and not her. She wouldn't have wanted to do the work, would she? 

Maybe she would have saddled up, and done the mature thing and toiled day in and day out at some lab. Or maybe she'd have turned out just like Randy, maybe she would have fallen into the same traps. 

Like the trap of Skeeter's. The trap she stood outside of, clutching her chips. She could see Randy's beater in the parking lot, the dent from the time he drunkenly backed into the mail box squarely in the center of the blue bumper. She inched closer to the window, holding her breath. She stood on her tiptoes, though it wasn't really necessary to see inwards. She was tall enough, but something about the prospect of seeing him pulled all of her frantic energy to her calves. Flexing her feet and clenching her ass didn't do much to help it, but it was better than just sitting with it. 

Randy was just sitting with it. Whatever feelings he was feeling, he was just sitting there, staring at the bottom of a pint. It was nearly empty, probably more spit than beer at this point, but he nursed it all the same. She stood, breathless, intruding silently on this moment she had no right to. She couldn't look away. All she wanted to know was what did he do next? Did he cry? Did he cry when she wasn't around? 

Sometimes she cried. No, often. She cried often. She'd see something that reminded her of him, like a the can opener, the one he'd bent out of shape as he tried to shave a few extra slivers of wood from Stan's pinewood derby car. She'd see the can opener, which was essentially useless, and she'd miss him. She'd miss him desperately.  They lived a whole life together, how could she not? How could she ever not miss him? 

She knew he was garbage. He was a garbage person and everything he touched seemed to turn to trash. The can opener had been tossed, as it should have been before the move. She hadn't packed all of the kitchen. Some of it had been Stan, and other bits had been Liane. 

"Sharon?" She could barely hear it through the cracked pane of glass separating them. "Sharon, that you?" 

Of course it was her. Who else would sit there and intently watch him drink? She couldn't think of a single soul. She didn't say anything. All of the words she wanted to say, how she wanted to call him a bastard, it all died in her throat. 

"Sharon!" He shouted, tripping over himself as he rose to his feet. "Sharon! I love you! I love you so much, Sharon! I'll change! I'll change!" He screamed, stumbling towards the door. 

He wouldn't. She knew he wouldn't. She had always known he wasn't going to change. Well, at least since Stan was born. He couldn't change for her. He wasn't capable. She took a deep breath, falling back onto her heels, and turned away from the bar. She could hear the door swing open, banging against the old wood siding. She didn't look back. She kept her eyes straight ahead, trying to figure out the exact location of her car. 

"Sharon! I love you, baby! I love you so much!" His words were slurred. He was shitfaced, probably too drunk to be chasing her. His footfalls were uneven. She heard a thump, followed by a loud string of curses. She'd missed that pothole in the sidewalk, because she was familiar with town. Because she was sober. 

She didn't respond. She let herself switch back to autopilot, ignoring the flights of fancy that sneaked their way into her mind as she walked away from him. Maybe she'd like their life together, and maybe she'd enjoy having a house more than she'd dislike his company. Maybe it'd just be easier to stay with him. 

Easier isn't always better. She'd told that to Stan the other day when he was asking Shelly to explain the plot of Old Yeller. It wasn't better to not do the work. It wasn't. Now was a time when she needed to step up and do the work, be a good role model. 

"Sharon!" She heard in the distance. She kept walking, feet pinched in her shoes and the cold nipping at her fingers. She let her shoulders fall back when she saw the car, slouching back into her general posture.

She placed the chips in the front seat, on top of a pile of forwarded mail for the two of them. She put the car into drive without much thought, and drove home. 

Well, to be honest, first she drove to the old house, and then she found her way to the apartment. 

"I'm home," she called out, eyeing the mess of kitchen utensils on the counter. She wove through stacks of boxes, avoiding the ones that were stacked haphazardly, with no solid foundation. She'd tipped a stack over yesterday, and broke her grandmothers pie pan. Not that she baked much. Not that she needed an old ceramic pan. 

"Mom!" Shelly stomped out of her room- their room, hands on her hips. 

"Good to see you, too," Sharon half laughed. "I got the chips." 

"I didn't do it! She's lying! You know she is!" Stan yelled, rushing in front of his sister and shoving her out of the way. 

"Stop it," she groaned. "Let me put down the chips that I just had to go get for you. I haven't even been in the house for a minute and you're freaking out." 

"It's not a house," Stan corrected. "It's an apartment. If we were in my house, then I wouldn't have to deal with Shelly's shitty music!" 

"My music's not shitty, you turd! You're the shitty turd with bad taste in music." 

"Stop, both of you please. I got the chips, like you wanted." They ignored her, deciding instead to keep screaming at each other. 

"Nu-uh," Stan corrected, shoving Shelly again for good measure. "I don't have shitty taste in music, because I don't listen to music. Everything is shit, so I don't want to hear any of it." 

"I got the chips, guys," Sharon tried again. "Does anyone want the chips you asked me to get?" 

"No one asked for chips," Shelly groaned. "You were supposed to get milk, because some turd, spilled it all over the floor." That was right, she was supposed to get milk. 

"It's your fault I spilled it! I would have if you didn't shove me out of the way to get your own glass." 

"Stop!" Sharon said, louder than intended. "Stop," she said again, softer but not gentler. There was an edge to her voice, a certain level of annoyance. "Just stop fighting. Both of you, grab some chips, and go to your room." 

"But Mom! That's so unfair!" Shelly whined, elbowing Stan in the ribs. "You're the worst, I wish I was with Dad." 

She didn't mean to say what she said. If she had the ability to do it over, she would have rewritten this exact moment into something more pleasant. But she knew she couldn't. As soon as the words left her mouth, she knew she was fucked. 

"I wish you were with your father, too. Both of you. Grab some chips, and be quiet. I'm going to bed." 


	2. First Few Desperate Hours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to you five for kudosing. I knew this wouldn't be a big hit, due to the subject matter, but I'm glad someone (besides myself is getting a kick out of it)

"We owe him one, Sharon," Randy spat. It was true, they both knew it to be true. "I'm sure he's at least halfway here by now, anyways." 

"You didn't have to tell him he could stay," Sharon argued, drying the same plate for the third minute. Randy could see the plate was dry, but he knew better than to stay anything. She could get emotional about the strangest things; there was no telling what would set her off. 

"I did," he said. "I did have to tell him. We have to repay our debts and he let us stay with him. Remember? Surely you remember living in his basement. We were there for two years, it's not like you can just forget that kind of thing." 

"Oh, trust me," Sharon spat, "if I could forget it, I would have. I'd pay good money to forget your father." 

"He's a good guy," Randy wasn't so sure of that statement, but he was a guy, and he was Randy's father. "He's a good guy and I'm sure he'll find a nursing home, fast. Just trust me Sharon." 

Sharon narrowed her eyes, knuckles white as she squeezed the plate like a life preserver. She placed it into the cabinet with more force than necessary, slamming the cabinet closed. People didn't find nursing homes quickly. That never happened. She couldn't even blame Jimbo for kicking him out of his cabin after he called the two of them faggots over morning coffee. 

She could blame Randy for offering to let him stay here. 

"I know he's not," she grumbled. "I know, because I've met him. Hell, I've lived with him." They wouldn't even be able to put him in the basement, not with his wheelchair. They'd have to put him in the master suite, next to the kitchen. They'd already hauled their crap upstairs into the postage stamp of a guest room. The double bed was the same bed they had in the basement. Things come full circle, or something like that. 

"He's mellowed out," Randy argued. "He just doesn't like," he lowered his voice, looking around the room for the kids, "the gays." 

"Oh hush," Sharon shook her head, newly cropped hair no longer moving. She was glad for the haircut, it was a change. A good change, not a change like moving your Father-In-Law into your bedroom. "He's just a hateful old man. That's why he said those nasty things. Mark my words, Randy, he'll say something awful to me by the end of the week." 

"No, no he won't, Sharon. And if he does, which he won't, we'll move him out." 

He moved in the next morning, a health aid dropping him off in front of the porch. The wheelchair couldn't make it up the steps, and of course Randy hadn't installed the ramp. Why would he do that ahead of time? What would be the purpose in that? 

She watched, arms crossed in front of her chest, the one that he'd certainly comment on as she watched Randy struggle to hoist his father into his arms. Last Christmas he'd told her he liked her tits, even if they were on the small side. And during her first pregnancy, as they lived in the basement, he told her that she should breastfeed so her tits would grow. That her husband needed that from her, in order to be pleased. 

He couldn't do it, because all Randy did all day was drink and sit around, he couldn't life a hundred pounds, no fucking way. So, instead of going in to eat the dinner she'd prepared for this momentous occasion of grandpa moving in, she supervised Randy building this ramp as the kids ate alone. 

"Can I get some food?" Marvin asked, pulling his arms out from beneath his blanket. All of his possessions were still outside next to him, a few stray boxes and a trash bag full of clothes. "Can your wife do that?" 

Nope. Nope, she could not. She turned on her heel, looking at Randy knowingly. Randy knew this would happen, he knew how rude his Dad was. She walked inside, slamming the front door, and flipping on the porch light. 

"Mom," Stan said, front tooth missing. "Mom, Shelly said I couldn't have more mashed potatoes, but you said I could. Tell her to stop," he complained. Sharon sighed. Both children were sitting on at the table, their vegetables virtually untouched, and the mashed potatoes for five people, virtually destroyed. 

She thought about complaining. She could lecture them about eating balanced meals, and as she sorted the talking points in her head, she heard Randy shout an expletive from outside. 

"Why won't the screw just go in!" He yelled as Stan giggled at the table. 

"Dad said screw," he snickered.

"That's not funny, stupid turd," Shelly pouted at the table, eyeing the bowl of potatoes in the center. She made a move to grab the last dollop, watching and waiting for a reprimand. Sharon sighed, there was no way. Not today. If the kids only wanted to eat potatoes, then so be it. She looked at their plates, and it looked like both had eaten at least half of their meatloaf. 

"Share with your brother," Sharon shook her head. She couldn't believe she was caving like this as he husband built a ramp so someone she disliked could move into her house. 

"But Mom, it's not enough," she whined. "That stupid turd already had a lot."  Her head gear glinted in the light of the dining room.

"Share," Sharon ordered. "I'm going to go upstairs and take a bath. Did you do your homework?" 

"Mom, Mr. Garrison said I have to watch the first two seasons of The X-Files for class. Do we have the DVDs?" What? He said what? She let mind process the words, and then chuckled. There was no way. It was a valiant effort, and she didn't have the energy to ground him for trying to watch an adult show. 

"No, we don't have it, Stan," she exhaled through her nose. "Be in bed by nine, okay?" 

"Yes, Mom," Shelly stuffed a spoonful of potato in her mouth, spitting it over the tablecloth when she spoke. 

"Don't talk with your mouth open, it's bad manners," she scolded. "I'm going to bed, is that it?" 

"Mom, what's doggy style?" Stan asked, poking his fork at the lump of potatoes Shelly had given him.

"What?" She stopped on the third step, looking back at him. "Where did you hear that?" 

"Mr. Garrison showed us a CD by the Bloodhound Gang, they said they wanted to do it doggy style while watching X-Files. Is it because that band is full of dogs? Is everything they do doggy style? Does Sparky do it doggy style?" 

She needed to remember to bring this up during their next PTA meeting. She groaned, throwing her head back, before regaining her composure. Hopefully Kyle told Sheila all this garbage, she was more likely to remember. 

"Yes," she decided was the best answer. "Yes, and I don't want you listening to the Bloodhound Gang, okay?" 

"Okay," he nodded, still moving his potatoes around the plate. 

"If you don't want them, give them to your sister," she said, climbing the stairs. She sighed, shaking her head again as she looked at them from the landing. They seemed to be getting along, both their heads bowed over their plates. She also couldn't hear Randy cursing from upstairs, which was a plus. 

She walked to the bathroom, running the water for a bath. After opening the cabinet under the sink, she realized that Shelly had used the last of her bath oil. Oh well, a plain bath would suffice. As long as she wasn't with Marvin and Randy. 

What had she been thinking when she married him? She could have been a doctor. She should have been a doctor. And instead, she stripping off her work clothes from another day as a receptionist at a plastic surgeon's office. She should have been the surgeon. She sunk into the tub with a huff, letting the stress melt away. 

There was always the chance she wouldn't have made it as a doctor, anyways. The days of the internet had allowed her to read posts about what residences were really like. They weren't pretty, that was for sure. Could she have handled months of erratic sleep? 

She massaged some shampoo into her hair. She could, she had before. Both Shelly and Stan had a bad case of colic, as was her wonderful luck. She ducked her head under the warm water, pulling her knees up as she slid down the tub. It wasn't as big as their master tub. She supposed she didn't need the master tub, but it's not like Marvin would get any use out of it. 

She groaned, sitting so that her back was against the lip of the tub. Why did he have to come here? He had already toured two homes, and neither were good enough. Of course they weren't good enough, nothing was good enough for him. Nothing Randy did, nothing Jimbo did, and nothing she did, they all failed to measure up to his standards. 

And it's not like he was a pinnacle of excellence. So he fought in the war, lots of people fought in wars. It's not like fighting for your country in an effort to escape poverty was an unusual thing. He had been divorced, twice, and switched jobs regularly. And it's not like he really had any retirement to speak of, never working at anywhere long enough to get a pension, back when they were still around. 

Maybe Randy would get a pension, she'd have to ask him once this whole ordeal was over. They were supposed to be a united team, why wasn't she more in tune with their finances? Was he hiding something? Did he have a secret life? She ran a washrag up her leg and wondered. Maybe he was a government agent, that'd be exciting. She didn't quite think he was smart enough for that sort of thing, but if he was actually doing important work instead of wasting time drinking at Skeeter's, that'd be a nice thing to hear. 

She figured the alternative was much more likely. That he was just wasting his time at the bar, and that's why he came home with tabs from Skeeter. She'd found them in his work pants, crumpled up with stray mints and toothpicks. She didn't think he had the capacity to run such a cover up, and if he did, she'd severely underestimated him. 

"Sharon!" She heard a shout, Randy, of course, from what seemed to be downstairs. "Sharon, come help me!" He yelled again.

She knew she could get out of the tub, rushing to the front door in her bathrobe, only to fix whatever disaster he'd gotten himself into, or she could stay locked in the bathroom and pretend she didn't hear him. 

The later was obviously the better choice. She let her head slink back, ears submerged for plausible deniability. Not that Randy could see her, but this kind of thing would help her keep her story straight. She wasn't a stellar liar, but if she sorted the details out ahead of time, she usually did fine. 

"Sharon!" There he was again. She sunk down further, leaving only her nose unsubmerged. She was sure she looked stupid, but it was good to be avoiding the problem. It was easy to avoid. They weren't her problems, anyways, or they shouldn't be.

If she was asked if Marvin could stay with them, she'd have said no. There would be no need to build a ramp, and if she did need to build a ramp, she would have made Stuart and Gerald fix it while they were over drinking. She would have used the man power she had requested, not to drink, but to fix the things that needed to be fixed. 

Part of her hoped the two of them would be stuck out there all night. 

She heard Randy call for her a few more times as she slowly scrubbed at her arms. No, she was not going to sort out this mess for him, not today. She wasn't good with her hands, not to any real technical standpoint. She didn't become a surgeon; she became a receptionist. Maybe if she stayed in college, maybe if she'd followed through with her original set of plans, she'd wouldn't be here. 

Maybe she'd be in an OR somewhere, saving someones life. 

Instead she ducked beneath the water again, blowing bubbles with her noise for a few moments. She used to yell at Stan not to do that in the pool, that it was dangerous. He could drown; he was just a kid. She thought that maybe she'd drown. That might be a relief from the incessant yelling of her name. 

It would be easy to hold her head under, she thought. It'd be a simple way out of a very complex problem. Well, the task at hand was simple. All they needed to do was build the ramp, then wheel Marvin inside and feed him a sandwich. Or Randy could make him a sandwich while he built the ramp. 

Randy had two arms and two good legs, he could make their food. Would he? It was doubtful. 

Instead of drowning herself, she toweled off, taking her time as she wiped the water away. She stood in front of the mirror, towel wrapped around her midsection, and grabbed her breasts. She weighed them in her hands. There was nothing wrong with them. They got the job done just fine. If Randy's Dad didn't like them, then too bad so fucking sad. 

Not that she wanted to hear about how inadequate they were. She stepped into her bathrobe, cynching it closed, and walked down the steps. Her breasts were fine. They were breasts. Why were men so particular? Why did she even care about what this hateful old man thought? Randy liked them, and she liked them, and that should be enough. What she had should be enough. 

"What do you need?" She cracked the door to see Randy, surrounded by the tools scatted on the front porch, and what appeared to have at one point been a wheelchair ramp. The boards were warped, like little wood grain sand dunes. She stiffed her laughter, biting the inside of her cheek, as he looked up from his seat on the steps, exasperated. 

"It's not working," he grumbled. "Fix it." 

"How in the hell do I fix it, Randy?" She asked, a stray laugh falling from her lips as Marvin glared. 

"That's no way to be in front of company," he chided, pulled the blanket tighter around himself. "A woman should help her husband. He doesn't have to be so nice to you. He pampers you too much, that's why you're mouthy." She inhaled, then raised her eyebrows as she looked at Randy. She knew this would happen. She knew he'd come into her home, and be rude. He wasn't even in the house yet, and he was being an ungrateful, intolerable, asshole. 

"Dad, remember," Randy mumbled, looking down at loose screws in front of him, "remember what I said." 

"You told me that your wife has your balls," Marvin taunted. "That's what I remember, and from what I see, that seems right." 

"Dad," he groaned, standing up and stepping on the warped ramp, the rails still laying flat in the yard.  He jumped a few times to test the weight as Sharon glared at Marvin. Who did he think he was? He needed their help. They'd paid him rent while in the basement, not a sizable amount, but something nonetheless, and he was here, freeloading on them. 

"What Randy? A man's got to speak his mind, or his balls will shrivel up right into his taint, like yours did." Sharon rolled her eyes. The nerve of some people. Sure, Randy was an idiot, but he was her idiot. 

"We don't have to let you stay here," Sharon pushed, stepping towards him and grabbing the grips of his wheelchair. "We can just go drop you off at some state facility, right now. Is that what you want?" She prodded, pushing the chair forward towards the broken ramp. "Is it?" 

"You can't let her talk to me this way," Marvin complained, not bothering to reply to Sharon. Like she didn't deserve acknowledgement.  

"Uh, guys," Randy stalled, standing in front of the ramp, "maybe we could cool it down a little bit?"

"Get out of the way," Sharon said, jutting her chin at towards the door. "He's coming inside, and you're going to make the three of us dinner." 

"Uh, I don't know if this ramp is gonna work," Randy put his weight on it again, flinching when it creaked.

"We're going to try, and if it doesn't then I'll carry him in. We can call a contractor in the morning." Sharon pushed him towards the ramp, gesturing for Randy to step aside. He did, with some hesitation. 

After the first couple of pushed for the first bump, she realized Randy's first assumption was correct, and the wheelchair would not make it up the ramp. She pushed again, ramming the warped wood harder. Instead of traveling upwards, the wood simply cracked, splintering along a chasm that formed in the center. She reared back with a sigh, shaking her head as she parked the wheelchair on the drive way. 

"Come on," she said to Marvin, holding out her hands. "I'm going to carry you in." 

Marvin chuckled, shaking his head and pulling himself out of the wheelchair. He trembled on his feet like a foal, but remained upright. Sharon watched wide eyed as he took the few steps towards the failed ramp, then sidestepped the mess and slowly climbed the stairs without using the banister. 

Son of a bitch. 

"Sorry, honey," he called to her as he reached for the front door. "I've got standards. If I was gonna motorboat some titties, they'd better be bigger than yours." Sharon felt the tips of her ears turn red as she turned to Randy. She shook her head feverishly as Stan walked out onto the porch. 

"Dad?" he asked, looking briefly down at the ramp, then pinching the bridge of his nose.  Sharon let out a humph, like Stan knew the first thing about the level of incompetency that happened here tonight.

"Stanley, it's time for bed." 

"Yeah, I know," Stan smiled, pointing to his pajamas. "I brushed my teeth and everything. I just have a question." 

"Fine, ask your question and then go to bed." 

"How do you drive a boat on titties?"

"Very, uh, very carefully, son," Randy stuttered. He seemed to be cooking up a way to explain it to Stan, and that was not how this terrible day was going to end. Not if she had anything to say about it.

"Just go to bed," Sharon cut in immediately after Randy. She watched as Stan walked inside, past his grandfather who sat on the couch with a smug smile. 

"Have a good night, Billy," he called out as Stan climbed the stairs. 

"Who the fuck's Billy?" Randy asked, turning to Sharon. 

"He's losing it. Your father has fucking lost it, and you just want to ask who Billy is?" She asked in a harsh whisper. "How about, sorry my dad keeps shitting all over your body, Sharon? How about sorry I waited until the last possible minute to build the wheelchair ramp?" 

"God, sorry Sharon," Randy mumbled, jutting out his bottom lip as he climbed the steps. "It's not like Dad's a walk in the park for me either." 

"Then goddamn tell him that. You can't just let people walk all over you, Randal."

"I mean, I let you do it, and that seems to be working out okay," he shrugged, walking up to the door. "Fuck, let me get his wheel chair," he added, racing down the steps, and missing one, falling flat on his ass. 

"That's what you get," she said, clicking her tongue as she went inside without him. If he was really hurt, he'd be calling for her, right? If there was any real damage, he'd have screamed. He was fine, and she was going to go upstairs and sleep. Hopefully, she'd be unconscious by the time Randy made it up to bed. 

"Where's dinner?" Marvin asked from the couch. 

"The kitchen," she snapped. "You can walk in there and get it yourself. It's the room with the stove." She didn't listen to his response, she just stormed up the stairs, upset that she was barefoot and couldn't cause more of a scene. 

As soon as she hit her bed, she asked herself if today had been enough of an ordeal to grant herself a glass of wine. She knew that she wasn't supposed to. Last time she'd given herself one little treat, she'd somehow ended up backing the car into the mailbox the next week, still drunk. 

She wasn't someone who could be trusted with such pleasures, she guessed. She rolled in bed, pulling the blanket over her face to hide the light. She didn't entirely trust herself to leave the bed, not like this. If she got up to get the light, she might go down stairs and snag one of Randy's beers. And then she might remember that beer tastes a lot like how horse piss smells, and go driving to the liquor store for something harder. She might ever crack open that bottle of Jack in the car, and start sipping on it on the drive back. 

She wasn't Randy. She couldn't be Randy. One of them needed to be a good influence, even if it was uncomfortable. 

No instead of getting up to drink, she made a plan to drive to North Park and slip into one of their AA meetings. It was far enough to not get caught. The whole town didn't need to know she was a lush. She had two years of sobriety, and that was something she'd like to keep hidden. It wasn't their business.

She pretended to be asleep when Randy came in, asked if she was awake, then turned out the light. He told her he loved her, like he always did. She could smell the beer as soon as he walked near the bed to place a kiss on her forehead.

She could have a beer, too, if she wanted.

When she woke up, she made an excuse about an early meeting for work, and made the earliest available meeting. 


	3. Southwood Plantation Road

"Can you believe they gave us the keys, Sharon?" Randy asked, dangling them in the sunlight outside of their house. Sharon held Shelly on her hip, laughing as she grabbed at her necklace. 

She looked like him, right? Her nose was stubby, and his wasn't, and his eyes weren't that set apart, either. They're eyes were the same shade of green, and that had to mean something. He hadn't paid much attention in the hereditary part of biology, or really any part of it. It was dry, and he didn't think he'd ever use it. 

"We bought it," Sharon smiled. "It's our house, that's why we have the key." 

He looked at his two year old and smiled back. Shelly was his, even if she wasn't. She didn't have to be biologically his, to be his. But, he was pretty sure that the biology part are lined up, not that he could get a straight answer out of Sharon in regards to her fidelity. 

Not that they had been exclusive. They hadn't. Well he hadn't been screwing anyone else, but he didn't want to tell her that. He didn't want to look like a loser, because he wasn't. He could have other chicks if he wanted, but he didn't. 

"You gonna open the door, Randy?" Sharon asked, tapping him on the shoulder. Shelly was on the floor, and a wet spot shone near Sharon's collar. Had she chewed the shirt? Was that normal? He didn't know. 

This was supposed to be a happy day, damn it. He shouldn't be stressing over how normal his kid, or the kid he was pretty sure was his, was. He should be relishing in the joy of owning his first home. He was a man now. He was a man before, too. Now he was like a super man, but without powers. He was just extra man now that he owned property. 

An super extra man wouldn't be so worried about these stupid details.

"Come on," Sharon interrupted his thoughts, again. "Open the damn door." 

"Let me enjoy this," he placed the key in the slot, and turned slowly. Slower than he would have if she didn't pester him about it. 

"Can we please just enjoy it inside?" She asked as Shelly pulled at her pants. Shelly looked between the two of them and laughed. She liked the porch, that was a good sign. She did look a little like him. Their ears were similar, the lobes detached. Another good sign. "Please, Randy?" 

"Yeah, yeah," he stumbled over the words, and put his hand on the door with great fanfare. The door was nice, a solid wood door and forest green trim. Sharon always liked green, he thought. Maybe it was blue. He looked at her as he held the doorknob. 

"Come on, open up," she exhaled through her nose, pinching the bridge of her nose. It was cute, the way she acted when she was flustered. It made him want to drag the process out further. He twisted the knob a fraction of an inch, and then a little further, until he heard the latch click. 

"This is it," he smiled as he pushed the door open. "Our very own house." 

"Thank God we're out of your father's basement," she sighed, walking inside. Randy bent down to pick up Shelly. She looked like him, totally. Maybe her teeth were fucked up, but he had braces, too. Maybe that's how bad his teeth were, and he just didn't remember. He smiled at her as he crossed the threshold, and she smiled back. 

She was his, for sure. 

"Oh, I forgot about the kitchen," Sharon smiled, looking back at Randy. "My two favorite people," she laughed, "and our new house. This will be good for us. A new start will be good." 

He nodded. A new start could be good. Maybe a new living space would stop their bickering. Maybe she'd agree to have another kid, a boy this time. He'd be sure that it was his, because Sharon wasn't seeing anyone else. No way, he thought. She was always home before him, and even when he was gone, she usually had work. He'd driven by the office, too, and she was always there.

There were no signs of infidelity, either. He'd gone through her dirty laundry, checking for another man's cologne or condom wrappers. There was nothing. She was being faithful, or she was doing a damn good job hiding it. 

"Earth to Randy," Sharon called out, tapping him on the shoulder. He'd stopped dead in the middle of the kitchen, looking blankly out the window. The oak tree out back was nice, good enough for a tree house. Shelly would like it, or maybe Randy junior. "Randy!" 

"Yeah, huh?" He blurted out, snapping back into reality. "What's it, Sharon?" 

"Were you not listening to anything I said?" She asked, glowering. He wasn't, but he'd be damned if he was going to tell her that. He placed Shelly on the ground and waved at her. She waved back, another good sign.

"Yeah, I heard you, Sharon."

"Okay, then when will they be here?" She asked gesturing to the room. Who was coming over? They hadn't invited any guests. It was way to early for a housewarming party, though he did hope that theirs would be good. He could get a keg, that'd be nice. Maybe they could get a sitter for Shelly, and they could do keg stands. She always liked to do that. 

Maybe Shelly would sleep through the night, and they wouldn't have to pay for a sitter. They could use the extra money for more booze for the party. 

"Randy!" She shouted, running her hands through her long brown hair. He loved her hair, the way it framed her face and fell onto her shoulders. God, he wanted to bend her right over the counter and pork her. Maybe not with Shelly in the room. After she'd gone to bed, that could be a good idea. 

"I swear to God, Randy! Why aren't you listening to me?" 

"I'm listening," he responded. "What did you ask?" 

"If you have to ask, then you're not listening," she groaned, picking up Shelly. She shook her head as she walked out of the room. 

"What did you ask?" Randy repeated. "Just tell me." 

"When is the moving truck getting her!" She yelled as she walked up the stairs, toddler on her hip.

"I don't know, you were supposed to schedule that." She was, he'd been the one who arranged the pick up, and he told her to coordinate the drop off. He told her when they were watching Jeopardy together. They were yelling out the answers as they drank, with Shelly playing on the floor in front of them. He told her in a commercial for Colgate, as she was grabbing their refills. 

"What do you mean I was supposed to do it? You were the one who talked to them on the phone? Why would that be my job?" She leaned on the upper banister to the stairs, screaming at him. Shelly, grabbed at the railing, squirming as she gnawed on it. What was she a beaver? 

Maybe she wasn't his after all. He didn't think he'd ever been that stupid. His kid wouldn't chew wood, no way. 

"I asked you to," he said after a pause, still watching Shelly. She kept doing it, like it was a normal thing. Was she hungry? Did she think it was food? "We were watching TV." 

"When?" She placed Shelly at her feet, and threw her hands into the air. "Damn it, Randy! I've got work in the morning! Everything I need is in that truck, and who knows when it'll be delivered. I can't believe you fucked this up!" 

"I fucked it up?" He asked as Shelly scooted herself down the stairs. "How did I fuck it up? I asked you to do it, and you didn't. That's not my fault. Not everything is my fault, Sharon!" 

"No, but just about," she came down the steps, pushing Shelly to the side with her foot as she descended towards the front door. "I'm going to get something to drink," she shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You stay here with Shelly, okay?" 

"Why do I have to do it?" He groaned, watching as she stalled on a step and tried to put her head through the banister. She didn't have a very big head, it might actually fit. He heard the click of  the latch, and turned towards Sharon. "Hey, bring me something back, will you?" He asked. 

"What do you want? The usual?" She smiled a bit, though her words were still harsh. She loved him, he could tell. He glanced back at the stairs, to Shelly, who was most definitely his. No way she wasn't. Sharon loved him, obviously. He nodded at her. 

"Maybe get some pizza, too?" He asked, hoping she would get pepperoni, which was also his usual. 

"Fine," she acted so put off by it all, like he was troubling her, but he knew he wasn't. She liked to run errands for him; she'd confessed that late on night, when they were halfway through a box of wine. Box wine was somehow worse than the regular kind, which he didn't think was possible. They both hated it, but they drank it anyways. "Give me like an hour." 

"Yeah sure thing, babe," he called out as he sat on the stairs. She shut the door, and he waited patiently for her return. He looked at Shelly, scrutinizing her from head to toe as put her hands in her mouth. 

Were their hands the same? He couldn't tell. He pulled her hands away, letting her wet fingers press against his jeans. They looked like hands. Everyone's hands looked the same, didn't they. Maybe he could sneak her off for paternity testing, call it Daddy/Daughter day. She couldn't tell Sharon; she wasn't old enough to tell. He could get her ice cream after. It was just a blood test, according to his new coworker, Peter Nelson. 

Peter seemed like a smart guy, even if he was a little bit of a stick in the mud. He never drank more than a few round a Skeeter's saying he had a family to get back to. They all had families, that's why there were at the bar. That was the whole point of the bar. 

He turned her arm over in his hand, checking the inside of her elbow. He ran a finger up her vein while she babbled. It'd be easy to a little bit of blood. If he took tomorrow off, he could go check. Mephesto would do it without an appointment. It might be hard to hide it from Sharon, but if he dressed her in long sleeves in the morning and did her baths for a few days, he could know.

It'd be a small price to pay. 

Maybe he could even have him prick her between the toes. Sharon would never look there. He grabbed her foot, letting her hand smack into the wooden stair. She wailed, but this was important. As she cried, he pulled apart her toes. He couldn't see any veins, but maybe there were some. Surely, they could get blood there. He knew a guy in college who did heroin that way, so there must be blood. 

"Randy?" Sharon asked, a brown paper bag in one arm, and a pizza balanced on her hand. "What the hell are you doing?" She slurred.

"Aw, did you pregame in the car?" He asked, dropping Shelly's foot to go investigate the bag. She titled it towards him, showing him the contents. Jack Daniels, his favorite. 

"Just a Bartles & Jaymes," she laughed. Her breath smelled fruity, like it usually did after these sorts of encounters. She was telling the truth. Of course she was. Shelly was his, and he was just being a big old baby about the whole thing. "Okay, I had two," she snickered, placing everything on the kitchen counter. 

Or maybe she was deceiving him. There was only one way to be certain. 


	4. Game Shows Touch Our Lives

"You going home with anyone tonight?" Randy asked, sipping on his beer. He didn't know how Phi Beta Alpha beer had managed to go stale, but it certainly was. Beer beggars can't be choosers, so he drank it down, crushing the red Solo cup in his hand.

The girl in front of him giggled, pushing her hair behind her ear. She seemed young, from the way she stood against the wall, eyeing the room full of strangers. She didn't have a drink, why wasn't she drinking? 

"You want a beer?" He shouted over the music. She shook her head, back flush against the terrible wallpaper. It was an odd yellow green, with vines crawling up to the roof and the occasional red flower. Were they not allowed to change it? "They're terrible," he chuckled, draining a few last drops from his crumpled cup, "but it's a party, you've got to drink." 

"Never drank before," she smiled at him, looking towards the front door. She pushed her hair back again, even though it was still safely behind her ear. God, she was gorgeous. If they both got drunk, maybe she'd be stupid enough to give him a chance. Even if she didn't, at least he'd get to be in her company for a bit. Something was better than nothing. 

"Well, good," he laughed again, hoping it would make her laugh. If he could cause some kind of chain reaction of happiness, this would go a lot easier. "If you've never had any beer before, you won't know how shitty this stuff is." 

She did giggle, softly. He could barely hear it, but she looked cute, her nose all scrunched up with her lips upturned. She shrugged her shoulders at him. This was progress. His English teacher had said that the wave wears down even the hardest rock, and even though he though it was a pansy thing to say, it was right. He was a wave, and he could erode her, with a little effort. It probably wouldn't take him thousands of years at this rate, just a few hours. 

He had time to kill.

He held out his hand for her to take it, and to his shock, she did, without hesitation. He lead her through the sea of sweaty college students, into the kitchen. A keg sat perched atop the counter. Three men, probably frat brothers by their dumbass haircuts and Easter egg color shirts, milled around, occasionally taking sips. One turned his nose up in disgust at the taste, offering his cup to his friend in periwinkle.

Why did men think they could wear periwinkle? The way he drank might have been a bit impressive if it wasn't for the ridiculous shirt he had on. He rolled his eyes, pushing past them wordlessly to get two new cups. He set his smashed on the counter, and proceeded to pour two from the tap as this girl watched. 

"Here, it's awful," he placed the cup in her hand, and their fingers brushed. Something jolted in his belly as he saw he raise it to her mouth with her eyebrows raised. He stood, silently, as she took a drink, sipping it and grimacing. 

"You weren't lying," she spat, frowning into her cup. "Why do you drink that?" 

"It makes you feel good." 

"At the price of feeling bad?" She asked, sniffing it. The way her eyebrows furrowed was almost too much for him.

"The bad parts only temporary," he drank his, gulping it down desperately. It was rank, and really a bad first beer for anyone to have. Not that any beer is good at first, but this was just especially awful. He took another drink, and continued until he could see the bottom of the cup. 

"So you stay in the good part forever?" She asked, taking another sip. 

"No, of course not," though it'd be great if that was possible. He watched her nurse the drink, slowly raising it to her lips, then letting the beer wash over them, slightly parted. She had nice teeth, straight and white. His were a bit crooked, even after braces, but hers were perfect. 

She was perfect. 

"What's your name?" He asked once his beer was gone. He held it close to his face, like a shield, even though it was empty. It was a protective barrier between him and her. He hadn't had enough beer to function without some kind of buffer. He was awkward, and corny, and prone to making puns about rocks, which girls were never into. 

"Sharon," she smiled, holding the cup away from her face. "I don't think I can drink this," she looked apologetic as she placed it on the rim of the counter. Her nearly full cup overlooked the sink. If it was one of his friends, his male friends, Randy would have called him a pussy, taken the beer and tossed it back like he he had been wandering the desert for hours. He didn't think Sharon would find any of that impressive. 

"Right on," he nodded, still eyeing the beer. He wasn't going to drink her leftover beer. He just wasn't. 

"Do you have a name?" She asked, looking straight up him. In a state of panic with the eye contact he grabbed her cup, and chugged it. Her eyes were the prettiest shade of brown he'd ever seen. They were certainly better than her hair, which she was tucking behind her ear again. When did it fall forward? Randy couldn't remember. 

"Yeah, of course," he said once he was done drinking. Shit, she was pretty. He tried to look in her eyes and tell her, but instead he just froze. 

"You gonna maybe tell me, big guy?" She asked, lightly pushing him on the shoulder. It was playful, and it'd be a lie to say he didn't like the contact. 

"Oh yeah, it's Randy. My name is Randy Marsh and I'm a senior and I'm majoring in Earth Sciences," he leaned into her touch, daring to look up at her eyes again. Those were bedroom eyes, right? She had to be into him. He wasn't good at reading this kind of thing, but this had to be it for him. She was the one. 

"Nice to meet you, Randy." It felt good to hear her say his name. He wondered what other ways she could say it. Would it sound different if she said it while underneath him? Surely, it would. He'd had sex with other girls before, she wasn't his first. 

She was the first that was this pretty, and the first with long hair. He wondered what it'd feel like in his fingers. All the other girls had gotten a taste of women's liberation or something, and cropped their hair short to their face. That was fine, he supposed, even if he didn't really like it. From behind it sort of felt like fucking a dude, not that he had ever wanted to try that.

Nope, it'd never crossed his mind, until just now. What did two guys even do? Sword fight? 

"Randy, do they have anything better to drink? Like some cola?" Sharon asked, putting her hand on his shoulder again. 

  
"Like a rum and coke?" He asked, turning towards the pantry. When he opened the door it was all booze, as was to be expected for Phi Beta Alpha. Maybe that's how the beer went stale, they went for the good stuff. No rum, but a mostly open bottle of whiskey. It'd work. Whiskey and coke was just as good.

Sometimes even better.

He pulled down the Jack Daniels, a grin on his face as he turned back to sneak a look at her. She watched him intently as he unscrewed the cap. Her eyes were so pretty, he could look at them forever. That might be creepy though, so he looked back at the Jack, and searched the kitchen for a can of something. 

They didn't have coke in their fridge, but there was a two liter of Squirt, which would have to work. It was that or serve it to her on the rocks. 

"That's not cola," she laughed. "I don't think that's rum either." 

"Well, at least I know you're smart," he chuckled.

"I'm premed," she said, peering into the cup as he poured the concoction together. "That color looks gross." 

"It's choice!" Randy yelled, excitedly taking a sip. "It's actually way better than the beer." He grimaced anyways, because it burned going down. She took the cup from his lips and pressed it to hers. 

"Gag me," she spat the drink in a spray of spittle all over his black t-shirt. "That's so bad." 

"Nah, it's way better than the beer. It'll get you drunk quick, too." She shook her head at him, bringing it to her lips for a second time. "Just chug it," he pushed. "If you chug it you don't have to taste it as much." 

She followed his instructions and chugged, streams of the rusty colored drink splashing onto her white blouse. He could see the outline of one of her bra cups. It was white, too, or he thought it was. She smiled when she was done, squinting at him. 

"Good, huh?" 

"No. Not at all," she laughed. "Can you make me another?" 

It was going to be a good night. 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

  
"Oh my god," someone next to him groaned. His head pounded as he blinked his eyes open in the dim light of his dorm. The sun filtered in comfortably onto his face as a warm body pressed into him. "I've never done this before," the feminine voice called out. 

"Shit, did I take your virginity?" Randy asked, stretching his arms into the headboard. It was a twin bed, a tiny thing with a matching one across the room. His roommate must have taken the hint and slept somewhere else. Thank God. 

"No, not that." That was disappointing. Taking a girl's virginity was a badge of honor, and he was a collector of sorts. Not that two was much of a collection, but it was something. It would have been three, but maybe next time. He turned and looked at her as she flushed red. 

She was gorgeous. He vaguely remembered her long brown hair in his hands the night before, pulling on it while he pushed into her. It was silky in his hands, and he just wanted to try that again. He heard it was better the second time, anyways. 

"I've never gotten wasted at a party and slept with a stranger," she sighed, stepping out of his bed. It creaked as she rose to her feet, wobbling ever so slightly. She was nude as she bent over to look for her clothing. Where had they put it? He didn't know, and he didn't care. Her butt was sweet, perky in a way a lot of party girls weren't. 

He didn't even think, he just rolled over to the edge of the bed, wrapping himself in the blankets, and swatted. The crack that reverberated through the room was sweet. His hand left a red park as he pulled it away. 

"Shit! Why did you do that?" She snapped, straightening up and facing him. "Why?" 

"Just thought your ass was nice," Randy snorted, grabbing on the nightstand for something to drink. He'd left half a beer, a gift from last night's version of himself. He drank it, and spit it out in a spray when she hit him on his own ass. "What was that for?" He asked with a laugh.

"It's payback," she mocked him. "Just thought it was nice." 

"Aw, thank you," he liked her. He decided he really liked her. He looked at the small television on the other side of the room and looked out the window. "Hey," he interrupted her as she stepped into her panties. She froze, contorting her body to look at him. God, it was hot. He felt his loins stir, and he figured, that if asked, he could go again.

"Can I get dressed?" She asked, pulling them into place and straightening the elastic around her legs. They weren't special, just plain while underwear that covered the bits that needed to be covered. 

He wished she wasn't putting them on. 

"I mean, if you gotta," he snorted, picking up the empty beer from the nightstand. He drank from it again, hoping that somehow it replenished itself. It didn't. He held it to his mouth and pantomimed drinking, because she was watching. He didn't want to look like an idiot.

"I should get going," she sighed, surveying his room. Was something wrong with it? Was it not up to her standards? There was no way. It was just a dorm room, and he was pretty sure he had more booze under his bed. "Christ! Put some clothes on!" She shouted as he climbed out of bed to kneel on the ground and search for the Everclear he had hidden. 

"You saw it last night," he snorted. "It's not like it's new. A-ha!" He pulled out the bottle and watched as her face turned green. 

"I'm not interested. I'm going home," she scrunched her nose up at the bottle as he climbed back onto the bed, sitting with it in his lap, not bothering to cover himself with a blanket. 

"You should stay," he said, screwing the top off and fountaining it into his mouth. It burned going down, but was refreshing in it's own way. "Password reruns come on Saturday morning," he looked at his wireless alarm clock, the red block letters said 11:17. So it wasn't quiet morning, and they'd overslept Password by over an hour. 

"Password? Like the old person show?" 

"You mean like the best game show ever invented?" He shot back, getting up, still stark naked, to sit on the old beanbags on the floor. He took another drink from the bottle, this time touching his lips to the rim.

"I don't know if I'd say that," she laughed, fingertips grazing his doorknob. She hesitated, looking back at him, and then down at herself. "Fuck, I'm not even dressed yet," she laughed, going back to look around the room as Randy tuned into the middle of an episode of Betwitched. I Dream Of Jeannie was a better show, he was sure of that, but this made for good enough drinking material. 

Meaning that she was hot, in the most basic sense of the word. It was easy to watch an attractive woman do anything. He craned his neck back around to watch as Sharon clasped her bra, both hands touching behind her back. Yeah, it was easy when she was pretty. 

He left the show on, for background noise, but kept turning to see her dress herself. Her white blouse, the one with the beer stain, was buttoned one by one, as Randy watched, drooling. He wanted to take it back off of her. He wanted to rise from his spot on the bean bag, and lung after her, pulling her back onto the bed. 

"Stay," he said, too forcefully, instead. He didn't mean to sound so insistent, but it was important. She was hot and he liked her, and she seemed to like him, at least from what he could tell. It was uncommon for this to happen. "Stay," he repeated, gentler. 

"Fine," she huffed, but he could see the start of a smile forming as she gave up looking for her pants. He had no idea where they could have gone to, it was a small room and not too terribly cluttered. He scanned the room once more, seeing a peek of denim from the headboard. 

They must have had a wild time. 

"Cool," he responded, pretending to watch the show, again. He didn't want to hint to the location of her jeans as she sat next to him, in an old red bag where the vinyl was cracking. If she knew where her pants were, then she might leave. 

"You want to get dressed?" She asked, looking blankly ahead.

"No, not really." 

"I don't really want to look at your dong all day, so maybe, ugh!" She groaned, rolling her eyes as Samantha wiggled her mouth. Randy tried it, just to be sure he couldn't magic her into shutting up. It didn't work, but she laughed. "What was that?" 

"Trying to see if I was magic, Sharon," he said, double checking, just to make sure he was not in fact magic. 

"You know this show isn't real, right?" She pressed him, staring open mouthed. He knew it wasn't real, he really did, but instead he tried it one last time. He wasn't magic, but he did look like an idiot.

Sometimes chick's liked that. 

"Jesus," she laughed, trying to copy him. 

He was certain she liked it. 


	5. The House That Dripped Blood

Listen here, you little turd," Shelly sneered, pushing her brother with both hands. He stumbled backward, unsteady on his feet. She was sure that when she was in first grade, she could at least hold her own. No one would ever treat her the way she treated Stan; they wouldn't dare. "We're going to play in the basement. We're playing house and you're going to be the baby. Got it?"

"I don't want to be the baby," he whined, voice higher than Shelly's. She wasn't sure he was a boy. Mom said he was, but he just acted like a twerp most of the time. "Can I be the dog? I like dogs."

"No, Sparky's gonna be the dog." Sparky was a dumb name, but she wasn't the one who named him. That was Stan. He was Dad's favorite and could do whatever he wanted. He didn't complain when he didn't eat all of his broccoli or when he hogged the Nintendo. "You're not the boss," she pressed his chest, again. "I'm the boss." 

"I want to go see Kyle. I don't want to play." 

"Too bad!" She shouted, opening the basement door and shoving him towards it. "I didn't ask what you wanted." No one ever asked what she wanted. No one asked her in a sickeningly sweet baby voice if she wanted green beans or corn. She didn't like corn, it was stupid. She always wanted green beans, and Dad always, always picked corn, it seemed. Stan wouldn't eat green beans, he'd just feed them to the dog, because he's a turd. Sometimes Mom would make green beans, but not very often. Dad sided with Stan always, and Mom only sometimes sided with her. 

A turd that got away with whatever he wanted. 

"Okay, turd," she spat, emphasizing the word as he climbed down the stairs. "I need you to sit down at the table, and I'm gonna be the dad, and you're the baby." She flicked on the dim light, a lone exposed light bulb that swung above a couch, an old TV, and a rickety table and three chairs that had been exiled from the kitchen. The fourth chair didn't make it, because Stan broke one of the legs while riding a scooter inside. 

They weren't supposed to ride those inside, but she was the only one that the rules applied to, apparently. It wasn't fair, so she was going to get her revenge. They were going to play house, and he was going to realize how nasty having a Dad could be. 

"Okay, sit down, Stanley," she said, using his whole name. Her teeth jutted out as she glared at him. He lowered himself into the chair, slowly, and scooted to the edge of the table. "Okay, Stanley," she repeated, walking toward the table holding out her hands like she had an imaginary plate of food. She set it down in front of him, and smiled cruelly. 

"It's green beans," she laughed, pointing at the invisible plate in front of him. "It's green beans and you have to eat them all, because I'm the Dad and you're just a kid." 

"Okay," he said softly, holding a fork in his hand, and bringing it to his mouth over and over with a confused look on his face. Shelly laughed as he was forced to eat green beans, his least favorite food. She could make him do anything she wanted. She had all the control. 

"Do you like that, turd?" She asked. 

"Can't you think of a better insult?" Stan asked, opening his mouth for more pretend vegetables. 

"What's a matter, turd? Don't like being told how much of a turd you are, turd?" She asked, leaning on the table. "Don't talk with your mouth full, Mom will get mad." 

"Mom isn't here," Stan groaned, pulling his hand to the bridge of his nose and pinching. 

"Why do you do that, turd?" She asked, drawing out the last word. "Does your nose hurt?" She tried to mimic him, but instead of hitting her nose, she put her thumb nail right into her eyeball. 

"Ow," she whined, covering her eye with her hand. "I'm telling Mom you hurt me, turd!" 

"But I didn't do anything," Stan complained, before taking another bite of food. He chewed quietly and with his mouth closed as Shelly glared with her one good eye. "You hit yourself," he added after he swallowed. 

"Mom said not to make fun of me," she spat. What a turd. First she hurt herself copying him, and now he was teasing her. Stupid turd, why did she need a little brother, anyways? Most of kids in her class were only children, not that they spent much time with her. 

They were stupid turds, too. Even the kids in her speech class.

"I didn't do anything, geeze," he grumbled, pushing the plate away. "I'm done playing with you, it's not fun." 

"You're not fun!" She shouted. "You're a turd and no one likes you!" 

"Kyle likes me," Stan said, shrugging. "And Mom and Dad like me."

"No they don't, stupid. I just said no one likes you," she glared at him, hands on her hips. Her eyes still stung, but it was bearable. It didn't distract much from how much her twerp of a brother got on her nerves. 

"Shut the fuck up!" A voice boomed from upstairs. Shelly looked at Stan, and bit her lip. That was Dad. He was angry about something, she didn't know what. Stan looked frightened back at her, looking around the room desperately.

"Go sit on the couch," her mouth started to form the word turd, and then she stopped. A dish shattered upstairs, hopefully just a dropped dish. Sometimes she did that, and it made everyone angry. Maybe it was just an accident. Accidents happen, Mom had told her. Don't worry, we'll clean up the mess together. 

Something told her not to go clean up the mess. That she wouldn't be any good at helping to fix whatever was broken. 

"You piece of shit! I hate you!" That was Mom, her high pitched shriek as clear as day. Shelly looked at Stan, who had started to cry. He stayed at the table, frozen in place. 

"I said, go sit on the couch," she repeated, careful to enunciate the words. "Listen to me, I'm the dad." 

"Dad's upstairs," Stan said quietly. "They're fighting again." 

"No, I'm the dad," she argued, clenching her fists. "Go sit on the couch. We're going to have father son Nintendo time." 

"What?" Stan asked, looking around the room as another plate crashed to the ground. He flinched, then scurried across the room and parked himself directly in front of the TV. 

"You're fucking wasted!" 

"Like you're one to talk, Randy! You're drunk every damn day! Who totaled the car? It wasn't me!" Shelly moved to sit next to Stan as the screaming continued. 

More things fell while the shouting continued, and she stared at the TV. She had to hook up the Nintendo, which meant pulling it down out of the closet.

"Can you get it?" She asked, looking at Stan. "Can you do it, son?" She rephrased it. "Son's do chores, that's part of being a kid." He didn't argue. He pulled a chair to the closet, and stood on his tip toes to pull down the machine. She watched him grab the games, the good two player ones, like Mario Kart and Mario Party, before safely making it back to the ground. 

"Good job, son," she said, whisper quiet as she took it from his hands. She plugged the chords into their proper ports as their parents, their real parents, continued to fight. She tried to ignore it as the start scene for Mario Kart played. She'd decided that Mario Party had too much reading. She didn't want to have to read all the parts aloud. She didn't want to make enough noise to let their parents know they were here. 

"I want to be Yoshi," Stan said softly, holding the purple controller, the one she'd gotten for her birthday, in his hands. Tear streaks were still fresh on his face, and she realized she didn't care all that much who was who. She just wanted to play quietly and avoid the fallout from upstairs. 

"Fine, but only this time, turd," she smiled, picking Princess Peach. Peach was just as good as Yoshi. Stan grinned back at her as he wiped at his face. She wanted to tell him not to get her controller wet, but as she went to open her mouth, something much louder than a dish fell to the ground. 

"That was my favorite vase, you cunt!" Mom yelled as Shelly pushed herself into Stan's side. "What the hell is wrong with you, Randy?" Shelly selected a racetrack silently, putting her finger to her lip when Stan opened his mouth to complain. He stopped as there was a loud clanging noise that reverberated around the room.

"Pulling out the drawer, real mature!" Dad yelled. Shelly looked at Stan and pressed the pause button. As quickly as she could, she raced to the top of the staircase, and locked the door. She returned downstairs, stumbling on the second to last step, but somehow managed to keep herself upright.

Once she was back on the couch, they resumed racing around a farm. It was fun, or it would have been fun, if the background noise wasn't present. They sat silently, and Stan didn't even let out any noise when he won first place. It was best of four, so it didn't matter that he was first, not really, but usually he liked to play up how good he was. 

"You're one to talk!" Shelly watched the countdown on the screen, but wasn't really paying attention. She missed the signal to go as she intently listed to the fight upstairs, trying to make sense of it all. They kept screaming, sometimes over each other. 

When Stan lapped her, he nudged her gently, trying to get her attention. She shook her head, and continued to listen without distraction. 

"At least I'm not a total bitch when wasted!" Stan won first place, again. The NPCs weren't very good, which is why Shelly usually liked to play alone. Stan continued racing as she sat still on the couch. He won the gold trophy, and she got nothing. 

Well she got to hear her dad call her mom a bitch, that was something. 

"I'll call the cops, don't try me!" That was her mom. She was pretty sure, even though the words were all slurred together. Mom sounded like Dad, which hadn't happened since Stan was little. 

Shelly remembered, though. One day Mom had dropped her off at school, smiling and bubbly, and then she'd gotten a message over the loudspeaker to be a bus rider home. She hated being a bus rider. She got on the stupid smelly bus, and when she got to the front door of their house, it was locked. The driveway was empty, and no matter how hard she beat on the door, no one answered. 

She sat on the porch until the sun went down, waiting for someone to let her inside. No one came home. Eventually Mrs. Broflovski brought her inside her house, with baby Kyle playing on the kitchen floor. She ate weird fish for dinner, and cried for her mom. She asked where Stan was, and Mr. Broflovski tried to comfort her. They didn't know. They didn't know anything. 

It was late at night when Mom finally came and got her from the Broflovski's. She had fallen asleep on their couch, watching some boring news channel. They didn't put on cartoons; they didn't tuck her into bed. They didn't even have her bear to help her sleep. 

Stan was there when she got home. In the bright of the porch light, she realized that Mom's face was red, and she was stumbling, worse than Shelly did, as she climbed the steps. Dad was asleep on the couch, and there were cans everywhere, silver and crushed against their brown carpet. She didn't like the way they smelled. 

And she didn't like the way the house key her mom gave her felt in her hands. It was attached to a thin red lanyard, which itched at her neck. The other first graders thought it was cool, that she had a key to her house. 

She didn't like having to be at home alone the next day. 

She liked it even less when her Dad dropped of Stan and said he was going to meet Mom for some alone time.

"Do it! Do it you, bitch!" The screaming jolted her from her thoughts. Stan still played the game, tongue stuck between his teeth as he hugged a turn tightly.  

"Don't think I won't! I wish we never would have gotten married!" That was Mom. Shelly put her hands over her ears, but it didn't do much to stop the noise. "I wish I had an abortion! I could have been a doctor, you fat, lazy fucker!" 

"I'm not fat!" Randy yelled. "And I don't even know that she's mine! Shelly could be anyone's! You dumb slut! Doctor my ass! You would have failed at that like you fail at everything!" 

Shelly looked at Stan, who paused the game somberly. She shook her head at him, tears threatening to fall. 

"Just play your game, turd." 

There was another crash, followed by loud sobbing. She could hear her mom's voice and her Dad's. Was he her Dad? She didn't know. Maybe that's why he was so mean to her. Dad's wouldn't treat their kids that way. Shelly didn't know what an abortion was, but it didn't sound good. It sounded like a bad thing, and a bad thing to wish for. How could it be good if it was brought up while fighting?

"Shelly, do you want me to go stop them?" Stan asked, kicking his feet against the couch. 

"No! No, you stupid turd," she spat, shaking her head as tears fell down her face. One time she had tried to stop them, when he was a baby, and she'd nearly got hit by a dish that slipped form her moms fingers. She was lucky it missed her. They didn't even stop yelling to see if she was okay. They didn't stop yelling until they were both asleep on the kitchen floor. 

"Okay, okay, geeze," Stan sighed, putting his game back on. Shelly watched as he raced around the track, and tried to ignore the yelling from upstairs. "It'd be cool if we could just stay here forever." 

"The basement is our house, son," she said, puffing her chest out while sitting next to him. She was the dad in this situation, and she was going to be a good dad. She wasn't going to yell, or throw dishes. She was going to take care of him, and right now taking care of him was watching him hit Bowser with a blue shell. 

"Okay, Dad," he said in a low whisper. He laughed at the end, pulling his feet underneath of his butt. He was good at this game, Shelly decided. She didn't know if a dad would say that aloud or not, but she knew for certain a Mom would.

"Mom says you're a good racer," Shelly added as he crossed the finish line to Rainbow Road. That was such a hard level; she didn't know how he could do it. 

"Uh, thanks?" He turned as the credits rolled on the screen, a smile on his face. At least the stupid turd was happy as their real parents screamed upstairs. "I need to use the potty." 

"Really?" Shelly asked, flinching as Mom screamed fuck over and over. 

"Really, really," he said, looking at the door at the top of the stairs. "I'm scared to go up," he added, quieter. "I don't want to." 

Shelly didn't want to, either, but she also didn't want to be stuck next to her brother if he was going to pee himself. 

"I think if we go together, it'll be okay," she said, getting up from the couch. "But we have to be quiet." 

"Like walking in the hallway at school?" He said, puffing his mouth full of air like a fish. He pushed the air out, and it sounded like a fart. She couldn't help but laugh at how stupid he was. 

"Yeah, but no gross noises," she said, as she went towards the stairs. It was a split second decision to hold his hand, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Together, they climbed the stairs silently. She bit her lip, and held a bubble in his mouth, because he was a stupid little kid and that's the only way they could be quiet. 

She didn't tease him about it, not now. She'd tease him later about how immature he was, like after their parents fell asleep. If she did it now, he might cry, and crying was not a quiet activity, not when Stan did it. 

"I'm gonna open the door," she whispered, "just follow me." She put her finger back to her lips breaking their hand holding, before turning the lock and twisting the handle. She grabbed his hand, again, made a beeline for the front door. 

"But-" he protested, but before he could make anymore noise, Shelly kicked his shin and put her finger back to her mouth. They needed to be silent. She unlocked the door too, after wiping her palm on her pants. They were separate again, and Stan looked back at the bathroom by the basement. 

She pulled him outside, shutting the door behind them as she pointed towards Kyle's house. 

"Go play with your stupid friend, turd," she sighed, sitting on the front steps. 

"What?" He asked, opting to sit down next to her. He grabbed her hand, again, and she sniffled back tears. Dad's don't cry in front of their sons, and they were still playing. They never stopped playing. 

"I'm the Dad, and I say go play with your friend. I have very important work to do, and I can't have some twerp bothering me all day." She crossed her arms and sucked up snot. Kyle's house was the best place for him right now. She didn't know where she could go to, maybe Kevin's? She didn't think there would be better, either. The McCormick's fought more than her parents, and sometimes Kevin had bruises. 

That was a bad plan, she decided. She could just sit on the porch and wait for the sounds from inside the house to stop. She knew how to make Macaroni and Cheese all by herself, and she'd gone with Mom to the store last week. They for sure had at least two boxes, not that she could eat that much. 

"I want you to come," Stan pouted. "We can play house at Kyle's," he smiled at her. 

"Don't be a turd," she snapped. She knew Kyle didn't like her, none of Stan's friends did. 

"Kyle can be the mom," he suggested. "Or he can be the cat. We didn't have a cat in our game, did we?" 

No, they didn't have a cat, because in real life they didn't have a cat. She furrowed her brow and dug the toe of her sneaker into the wooden step. Stan was barefoot, with dirt underneath his toenails. Why were boys so gross? Yuck 

"Fine, but only because you asked, turd." 

When they got to Kyle's, they didn't even play house. They watched cartoons and sat quietly eating popcorn. Mr. and Mrs. Broflovski gave knowing looks as they sat on the couch, silently. They didn't have to be quiet, not now, but Shelly spoke only in hushed whispers all the same. She didn't answer any of their questions, and when the sun went down, she told the Broflovski's it was time to go, and thanked them for the popcorn. 

When they came back, Mom was asleep at the kitchen table, a bottle of wine overturned and dripping onto the floor. She didn't see Dad. She went outside to check for his car as Stan pulled out the macaroni from the cabinet. It was gone and there were tire tracks through their front yard, plus the mailbox had fallen over. 

She shook her head when she came back inside. Dad was gone, but maybe that'd be good. Maybe he'd stay gone and they'd get to eat green beans and Mom would be nice. If he wasn't here, they couldn't fight. 

Stan wailed as she frowned at him. 

"Shut up, you little turd," she said, elbowing him in the ribs. "You don't want to wake Mom up, do you?" 

"No," he blubbered, looking at her collapsed form. Drool pooled under her mouth as she snored against the wood. 

"Then hush," Shelly chastised, pulling out a pot to boil the water. Macaroni wasn't a very balanced meal, she decided. She was the parent, so she needed to make those decisions. She raided the pantry as the water boiled, looking at all the canned vegetables they had. There were green beans, her favorite, and there was corn. 

She looked at him, crying as he sat on the floor in front of the fridge, and remembered that parents were supposed to put their kids first. 

"Do you want corn?" 


	6. Idylls of the King

"Whatcha doing out here?" Randy asked, walking through the park behind the school. She'd meant to stay hidden. She'd meant to go far enough away to get away from him permanently. "You didn't call me back," he prodded, inviting himself to sit next to her on the bench. She picked at the splintering wood as he spoke. "I called a bunch."

He had indeed called a bunch. She'd been purposefully dogging his calls. Somehow she managed to convince her roommate to let all calls go to voicemail. Probably a sympathy play, but she'd take what she could get at this point.

"Do you not like me?" Randy asked, turning to look at her full profile. "We just stopped screwing, like out of nowhere. I mean, if you don't want to screw, then you don't, I guess. But I like you. What I mean to say is, I like you." 

"Randy," she half laughed, "just stop." She meant to break up with him, she really did. It was on her to do list, but between booking appointments and trying to keep her grades high enough to avoid academic probation, she hadn't found the time to drop him a line. She thought about taking out an ad in the school newspaper, but that seemed a bit impersonal, even if their relationship wasn't very deep to start with. 

"Why?" He asked, leaning against her on the bench. His jacket reeked of alcohol, it usually did. The smell made her nauseous. "I know I'm graduating in the spring, but that doesn't mean we can't be a thing. We can, we can, if you just trust me for a minute. I want you to trust me. I want you to want to trust me."

Sharon was sure that was the most eloquent she'd ever heard Randy say. Through all of their drunken mishaps, they never talked about anything of any importance, not really. Here he was, pouring out his soul, while she worried about her future. This was not someone she wanted to be with forever, she didn't think. She paused, looking at his face, the way his eyes crinkled as he smiled at her, the way he worked his bottom lip in his teeth as he waited for her response. 

Its not that he wasn't pretty, or handsome, or whatever you wanted to call a slightly pudgy man-child with a round face. He was, in the most basic sense of the word attractive. He kept staring at her, his eyes boring holes into her temple as she turned away.

"I just don't think it's going to work," she admitted. "We're not compatible. We're not, and I'm sure you'll find someone out there for you. I'm sure that lots of girls would be very excited to have your affections. I'm just not so sure you're the one for me." 

"I think you're the one for me," he pushed, bundling his coat tighter. He was going to do this. She'd been warned by about half the dorm, saying he wouldn't take the news easy, but she didn't believe it. She should have. She thought she knew better than everyone else, but she didn't. The predicament she was in proved that she didn't know better than anybody. 

She was an idiot. 

"I think we're soulmates, or some bullshit like that." 

Jesus H Christ.

"I don't think so," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I don't think we're soulmates." Something uncomfortable churned in her gut, so she smoothed her coat out, sucking in her stomach a bit more. They were certainly not soulmates. They were drinking buddies that fucked, at best. At worst they were two desperate people who screwed desperately. 

Towards the end, she rarely stayed until morning, opting instead to sneak out as he slipped out into drunken post coital bliss. It'd been at least a month since they'd met up at a party. She hadn't had a drop to drink in almost a month. 

Shit, she'd known she was pregnant for a month. She put her hands over her face as Randy watched her, eyebrow furrowed.

"No, Sharon, I love you! I decided! I decided I love you. I can't live my whole life without you," he argued. 

"You can. I'm sure you can." Sharon was sure she could live her life without him. It would be easy. He was hard to be around, constantly drunk, and a bit of an idiot. Why had they gotten together in the first place? Was she also these things? Did college really turn her into a party girl like her mother had warned? She never really heeded any of her warnings, and she supposed this was what she got for that.

"I love you!" He shouted, standing up. He forced her into eye contact, standing directly in front of her. "I love you, Sharon! I don't want to break up!" 

She saw the anguish on his face, all for some stupid freshman girl he'd been fucking for less than five months. Surely, he had other girls. Surely, there were other girls, girls who drank less, who threw up on his sheets less, who were prettier and smarter.  

She had other boys. Boys who weren't quiet so drunk. Those boys didn't usually come back for seconds. Randy was the only recurring man she'd been with, and they weren't even properly dating. She couldn't stay with him. How could she? 

She didn't even think she wanted to. 

If she wasn't pregnant, she wouldn't have wanted to stay with him, so why should this make it different? She had an appointment soon, anyways. She wasn't ready to be a mother. She was supposed to be a doctor, first. Then get married, after that, and then maybe, just maybe, settle down and have a kid.

She was doing everything in the wrong order, and she desperately wanted a redo. 

"I think I should go," she said softly, averting her eyes. Looking directly at him was too much, too intense. He seemed legitimately pained at the end of their relationship. It wasn't even really anything. Just two college kids fooling around as his graduation rolled closer and she got her sea legs. Randy was something to pass the time, like a romance novel or a puzzle of scenery. There was nothing special there, only shared moments. 

He stood, watching her, looking like he was about to cry. She had been the one here first, but she wasn't attached enough to the spot in the park to make him go. She could just go sit in her car, or in her dorm room and pretend that her problems were as basic as her roommates calorie counting and gossiping.

"Why are you doing this?" He roared. "We used to have so much fun! You and me, going from frat rager to frat rager. Why aren't you into me anymore? What did I do to you?" 

Sharon sat as still as she could through his yelling, protectively putting her hands in front of her belly, which by all accounts was dumb. She had an appointment at the clinic in two days, it didn't make sense to try to protect it from Randy when she wasn't trying to protect it from herself. The window of opportunity was almost closed.  She had a very limited time to terminate, and it's not like she'd take care of herself at all during the last four months. 

"Are you even listening to me?" He asked, putting a hand on each shoulder. "I love you, why are you acting like this?" 

"Why do you keep saying that?" She asked, pulling away as best she could. "You don't even know me. What major am I, Randy?" She paused for a moment, looking him dead on. He was silent, eye brows knitted together as he moved his lips silently, like she was some sort of problem he couldn't figure out. "Well?" 

"I mean, you're pretty good at math?" He was unsure. He didn't have a clue, and she could tell. "I think, uh, engineering?" He immediately started talking as he saw her face fall. "Maybe is it, uh, is it, fashion design?"  

"Pre-med!" She yelled. "I talk about it all the time. I want to be a doctor, Randy. You can't remember the slightest of details about me! You don't know me, so you certainly don't love me. You don't know anything." 

"I know you're pregnant," he glared pointedly at her stomach. She shifted, clenching her muscles to appear less so. "Were you even going to tell me?" 

How the hell did he know that? She hadn't told him, and she was never going to tell him. She was going to wash this whole bullshit situation from her hair after the abortion, and keeping him around was inviting an infection. She didn't need MRSA; she needed to wash her hands and move on. 

"No," she admitted. "The appointment is on Thursday. It's being taken care of." 

"Christ," he said softly. "I guess, I guess that's that, huh?" He looked like he was about to cry. As if he had any feelings for her, or this thing inside her. This career killing, college ending, thing, that was growing like a tumor at a rate faster than she was comfortable with. 

"Yeah, that's that, Randy," she nodded, standing up as he took a step back. She turned her back, and started to head towards the campus. As soon as her feet touched the beginnings of the dirt trail, Randy called out.

"Hey!" He said, jogging up beside her and looping an arm around her shoulder. He was warm, like he always was. "Hey, I know this is crazy," he started, walking slowly beside her. 

"Yeah, just a bit," she groaned. This was not the perfect plan she had envisioned for herself. This was not part of the plan to become a surgeon. She was supposed to keep a 4.0 average through her undergrad experience, and instead she'd tried blow and gotten sloppy drunk five nights a week, usually finding herself in Randy's bed by the end of it. Hell, she'd done blow while pregnant, apparently. She was so far away from the self she'd left in Kentucky. She was a good religious girl back home. Dowdy Sharon, who couldn't get a boyfriend, and then the moment she touched the campus of Colorado State, she was swarmed with boys. 

But Randy was the only one who had bothered to ever come back. Everyone else wanted her for an evening, and at the end of that, it was a slow creep back to her dorm room in the dim light of morning with her head hung low. No one had been as stable as Randy, not that anything about him was stable. 

He was the human embodiment of a three legged table, tipping with the slightest nudge. Going from a good mood to a piss poor one when a buddy started ragging on him. He was a wimp, and fuck, most of the time he got on her last nerve.

She heard him sniffling, and there was nothing she could do, she just started to cry, too. She had always been an empathetic crier. Easy to cry and hard to stop once it started.

Her mom insisted she'd grow out of it, but she wasn't so sure. The pregnancy wasn't helping things, she didn't think, though she tried not to think about the baby- fetus, too much.

It came in handy sometimes, like when she forgot homework for a class, but usually it was a pox. Ruining her otherwise decent poker face. It was either great luck or terrible luck, but most of the time she thought it was bad. Right now, as he hugged her close, stopping her in her tracks in the middle of the path, she figured she had the worst luck of anyone she knew. 

And back home, she knew a girl whose family used to farm peanuts, but the girl was allergic. They had to sell the whole damn farm for her safety and her parents ended up splitting from the financial stress, or that was the word at church. 

In Randy's arms, listening to him tell her to shush in a low voice, she figured she had it worse off than that girl. At least Rebecca wasn't saddled with this kind of weight knowing it was all her fault. People didn't give themselves allergies. 

"So, hear me out," he said, spinning her so that she was looking straight at him. "Hey, don't cry. You don't have to cry," he said, running his thumb underneath her eyes. She thought about denying it, saying she wasn't crying, but that seemed fruitless. At the point where they were both in tears, it seemed like a dumb thing to worry about. She sniffled, loudly, snorting everything back into her nose like a pig. Her neighbors had pigs, and they made a terrible oinking noise, like she did when she was struggling for air when sobbing. 

This wasn't happening. She wasn't doing this in front of him, in front of anyone, but especially in front him.

"Hey, I'll take care of you," he reassured her. "I'm going to man up, okay. I know I'm a party boy, but I can change. Graduation is right there, right around the corner, and I can take care of you. Keep it and I can take care of you." 

No, no, not this. She had tried to steel herself against this kind of thing, in advance. She wasn't going to tell him, because she didn't want to deal with his pleading. He was genuinely nice, beneath all the stupid and crazy, and she couldn't look at someone nice and break their heart. 

He didn't really want this. He didn't really understand what this entailed.  

"No, no you can't, " she sniffled. "I have a paper due in Bio. I'm behind, so if I could just go, please." She did have a paper due, but it wasn't until Friday. It wasn't a total lie, just a half truth. 

"Let's get married!" He exclaimed as she turned to walk towards her room. God, he didn't just say that. She kept walking and he said it again. "Let's get married!" She spun around to look at him again, jaw dropped to the floor.

 "Yeah, you heard me!" He said, like he was asking for jager, or for Captain Crunch. Not like he was trying to commit to a kid that might not even be his. Chances are it was his, but she knew that genealogy wasn't really a statistics matter. It was luck, and she had shitty, shitty luck.  
   
"Why?" She asked. Why would he offer to marry her? She was giving him a hall pass, by all accounts. 

"Because I love you," he reiterated. "I love you, and that's what you do for people you love." Sharon paused, then laughed aloud. 

"This is insane," she giggled, tears still falling down her face. They spilled onto her cheeks, then ran down the her chin where the splashed onto the dirt below. "Do you realize this is insane?" 

"It'll be great," he argued. "Me and you, and the baby." Fuck, she was pregnant. The reminder jostled her, making her back stiffen. "I'm sure we can stay with my Dad. Let's go, let's go get married." 

"Like now?" She asked, taken aback. "You have to plan a wedding Randy. There are things that have to be done. I didn't even agree, yet. I don't even know if I want to have a kid." 

"I knew you'd agree though," he said, shoving both hands in his pockets. He rummaged around for a few moments, then pulled out a thin gold band. "I went to the store and got it for you. It's not fancy, Lord knows I can't afford fancy right now, but maybe I can upgrade it later. Marry me, Sharon," he said again, rushing around to kneel in front of her. 

"Jesus," she gasped. It wasn't fancy, not at all, but she was a nineteen year old with no real jewelry to speak of, and it did seem to be real gold. Randy had learned she was pregnant and bought her a gold ring. She didn't even tell him; she was just going to sneak off into the night and hope to never speak of it again. 

"It's for you," he said softly. "I didn't get you an engagement ring, but I've got a 72 hour return window, so if it doesn't fit I need to know. Try it on." 

"Randy, we can't just get married," she whispered, cautiously taking the ring from his hands. She turned it over, before sliding it on her ring finger gently. It was a perfect fit, like it was made just for her. 

Oh no, this wasn't happening. She felt her resolve start to melt away as she spun it on her finger. It was a pretty thing, and he was pretty, and she was pretty sure the kid- their kid, would be pretty. Hell, maybe even she was pretty.

"I've got a full tank of gas," he said with a grin, "we can be in Vegas by tomorrow. They've got twenty four hour chapels, we can be married by Elvis if you want." 

"What?" She asked in disbelief. The prospect of riding in a car for eleven hours, when she had to pee every hour, sounded miserable and jostled her out of her shocked state, into a different state of disbelief. "We can't go to Vegas?" 

This was a bad dream, and she'd wake up soon. 

"We're old enough, aren't we? You are eighteen, right? I didn't pork a teenager did I?" He looked around anxiously while Sharon lowered her head. Did she want to deal with this forever? Was this as good as it would ever get for her? He didn't know how old she was. He didn't know her major. She doubted he knew her last name, or what kind of food she liked, or if she voted Democrat or Republican. 

He didn't know anything about her. 

He knew she was a female pregnant with a baby- fetus he presumed to be his. He acted like there was nothing else to know. Like she wasn't a person beside from her incubation abilities. 

He was offering to marry her, though. And though it wasn't alive, this kid- fetus, there were lingering doubts about the abortion- the procedure. She didn't believe in hell, and hadn't since senior year, but if she was wrong, she didn't want to be stuck there. 

She didn't want to make the wrong choice. 

Maybe, just maybe, Randy was God's way of giving her another option. 

Or maybe it was just her terrible luck again.

"I'm nineteen, pervert," she wiped at her eyes and smiled. He was a good man, a good man who was trying hard to make her comfortable. He was stupid, and crazy, and a drunk, but he was good. Fuck, this was insane. She was all of those things, though she wasn't certain of how good she was. "You really want to do this?" She asked, hesitating as he took her hand, the ring still on her finger. 

"Yeah, really," he said, again. "We're gonna be a happy family; me, you, and whoever is in there." He tapped with his free hand at her belly, like he was touching the nose of a dog. 

"Randy, I have the appointment," she didn't know what she wanted. How could she possibly know? There was no cheat sheet in life to find the best way to handle these sorts of things. There was no way to peer into the future and see if she'd be happy in fifteen years, if she was making the right choice.

"You can cancel it," he said, smiling. "I'll take care of you. I'm going to take care of you," he reiterated. "Both of you." 

"Can I think about it?" She asked, pulling away as they walked. The ring didn't budge, not when her hand slipped out of his. It was like they were bound together now, through an unmovable ring. One that had just spun on her finger, a minute ago. 

Maybe this was her sign.

"You can think about it," he reassured. "But I want to marry you, I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to. I called my dad and talked to him and everything. Got the third degree for knocking some freshman up, and everything." He snorted, motioning at his car with a simple head tilt.

"Hey, let's just go," he suggested, again, while she watched awestruck. "It'll be fun. A last road trip for freedom, right? Last gasps or some other poetic bullshit."

"Randy, I don't know that this is a good idea." Who did this kind of thing? Who just jumped into a car with a not boyfriend of five months, and decided to get married? Who skipped class, ignored responsibilities, and fled for one last taste of what life could have been like?

Apparently, Sharon did. 

She was going to get married to this man, her drinking partner. Why? Why was she doing this? She didn't know, but somewhere in her gut, it felt right. Or it was gas, she wasn't sure. She could always get a divorce. 

The ring had been a sign, or maybe the regret bubbling in her gut as they passed through the city was the sign. There was a sign, surely, but she didn't know where it was. 

Maybe there was no sign, and none of it mattered. 

She fell asleep in the car, almost as soon as they left the city limits. Randy sang off key as she drifted in and out of consciousness. She didn't ask him to be quiet, and he didn't complain when she asked every fifty miles to stop for a bathroom. He even went as far as to guard the door of seedy, unisex, truck stop bathrooms, like some harm could befall her as she squatted in a single stall in west Colorado.

"It's good to be protective, you know?" He said with a smile as he watched her wipe her hands on her sweatpants. 

Christ, was she getting married in sweatpants? Apparently, she was. She'd relented somewhere in Utah, saying that sure, Elvis could marry them. Why not have him do it? Why not get married on a whim to the man who maybe knocked you up? It seemed like the right thing to do. 

At least Vegas was pretty. She'd never really seen much of the city, not even in Denver, keeping mostly to the campus. The lights flashed around her and, the darnedest thing, there was a roller coaster in around a building. 

"Wanna stop and ride it?" He asked, excitedly. 

"You can," Sharon sighed. "I can't ride anything."

"You get motion sickness or something? We can stop and get some Dramamine if you want. It's our wedding day after all." He punched her on the shoulder at a red light, shoving her into the car door. 

It dawned on her, not for the first time, but fully, that he had no idea what he was getting himself into. 

"No, I can't ride because I'm pregnant," she pinched the bridge of her nose, rolling her eyes as the light turned green. "You can go now." 

"I got it. I'm smart enough to drive, trust me." 

"Well we're still sitting at a green light, so you tell me." Sharon jumped as the truck behind them honked, flashing their brights. 

"It sounds like you don't think I can drive. You weren't the one who drove us for twelve hours, stopping half a dozen times to piss, now were you?" 

Was this her sign? Or was the trucker cussing at them, leaning outside his window, the sign?

"Just go, Randy," she groaned. 

This wasn't how she imagined her wedding day, not that she'd spent a lot of time thinking about it at all. She did figure it'd be in a church, and that she'd wear a dress. Her name would have Dr. in front of it instead of Ms. That part had always been important to her. 

There was ketchup on her sweats from a hot dog she ate somewhere in Utah. Her hair wasn't brushed and one of her socks was an ankle sock, while the other was a crew cut. She never dreamed she'd have a white wedding. 

She did suppose her family would be happy that her kid wouldn't be a bastard. Not that her aborted fetus would have been a bastard. She wasn't getting an abortion, she supposed. It didn't make sense to go through all the trouble of getting married, and then not go through with the pregnancy. And Randy was nice, he was the nicest boy she'd ever been with, not that she'd gotten to know most of them. This was a good choice for her life. 

For her kid's life. 

Because if she was keeping it, she needed to shift her thought process from fetus to baby. It was good for the baby to have two parents, even if one was overzealous and kept stopping at green lights like some kind of idiot.

He was nearly finished with his geology degree. He'd be able to support them while she continued on with her scholarship. Would she still have a scholarship? Could they drop you for having a baby? She wasn't sure. She didn't think that was allowed, but she didn't want to call and ask. Maybe if she never told them, they'd never know. She'd just continue on with school. She'd be a doctor by the time her kid reached middle school. They'd get to see the pay off of hard work and perseverance. 

She spaced out like this for the entirety of the drive around town in search of a chapel. She watched blankly as Randy drove, looking for a motel room cheap enough to fall asleep in. They were finally successful, a rundown spot with a sign saying 30 dollars a night. He pulled underneath the awning, and parked the car.

"You sure you want to do this?" He asked, helping her out of the car like she was some kind of invalid. 

What was she going to say? No? That wasn't really an option, and she knew that. His asking her was a formality, at best. He was trying to be a gentlemen, to have plausible deniability if this blew up in her face. He'd say, years down the line in court that he'd tried to give the option back in Vegas, and she didn't take it. 

Maybe thinking about a divorce already was a sign, or maybe the sign was that they'd be together for a long time.

"I'm in Vegas with you, aren't I?" She asked. Something churned in her belly, but she figured it was just the baby, not something nagging away at her. How could she trust her gut when it was occupied by another being? 

"If you don't want to do this, I can drive us back," he offered her another out. He must have hardly known her, because she was stubborn. She didn't accept outs. If someone said she could drink less at beer pong because she was a woman, she drank more. If it was suggested that she could take a shorter route in gym, she ran the laps, plus some. 

"I want this," she was louder than intended as she shoved his hands away from her arm. She could lift her own body out of the car. She could open her own door. She didn't need him to marry her. This was something she wanted to do. "If I didn't want this, I'd be in Denver writing that paper." 

Fuck the signs, this was her decision to fuck up.

"Forget about school, for like, two minutes," Randy joked, still holding out his arm. She didn't take his help as they buzzed a bell by the door to the lobby. 

"School's important to me," she said with a huff. It wasn't as cold in Vegas, which she was grateful for. Also, it wasn't snowing, which was always a plus. It didn't snow all that much in Kentucky, and she hadn't been prepared for winter in Colorado. "School is important, period." 

"Why?" Randy asked as a stubby man with a graying beard opened the door. "You're just gonna be at home with the kids." She didn't get a chance to respond, so she just bit her lip as this man ushered them into a lobby with sofas from the 70s. The swirl of colors made her feel sick. Or the baby was making her feel sick.

Or maybe it was the idea of being hours away from marrying a man who thought her contributions in life should start and stop at home.

"Can we have the honeymoon suite?" Randy asked, pulling out a wad of bills from his back pocket and placing them on the counter as the man walked himself back around. She wanted to ask where he got the money, but at the same time she wanted to play stone faced until he apologized for offending her. She was going to be a doctor, she was sure of it. 

"There ain't one," the man said flatly. His beard looked worse up close. It was patchy in a way that beards sometimes are, but it was long. And despite the length, patches of bare skin were still visible near his chin. 

"Okay, well what do you have?" Randy asked. 

"I've got a double bed available," he looked at a panel of keys that hung on the wall. His fingers brushed over them, like he was reading braille.  "And, and I have a queen." 

"How much?" Randy asked, smoothing out the bills on the counter. 

"Queen will cost you thirty five, and the double will run you thirty. You gotta pay tax if you pay with check, plush you gotta give me your driver's license so I can take a picture." 

"Hmm," he ran his hands over the money, careful to unfurl the edges. The man watched intently, his bushy eyebrows drawn. She shifted her stance, trying to make up for the swelling in her tennis shoes. She should have worn better socks, matching socks. The ankle sock had slipped down her swollen foot somehow, cutting off circulation at the arch, and the crew cut squeezed into her calf.

"I've got to use the ladies room," Sharon interrupted their silence. "Can you point me in the right direction?" 

Wordlessly, he pointed toward a closed door behind that sickening couch. It seemed to be some kind of velvet, the fabric holding the imprints of whoever's ass was on it last. She kept by the couch, holding air in her mouth to try to tamp down the vomit she could feel creeping up. 

The door stuck as she went to open it; the wood smelled damp. The room must not have had any sort of ventilation. All she could smell was a thick smell of pine and a lingering mold as she looked at a pink ceramic toilet, the seat chipped and the flush wrapped with a few rubber bands. 

There was no way she was using this bathroom. She stood in front of the warped mirror, listening to the slow drip of the sink as she stared herself in the face. She looked a mess, more than usual. The bags under her eyes seemed to grow as she pushed her fingers into them. She had opted out of make up that morning. She hadn't know she was going to elope. 

She didn't even pack her make up bag. She didn't pack anything. She hoped they didn't take pictures at these kinds of things, because she was not photo ready, and she doubted she'd be photo ready tomorrow. 

Fuck, she hadn't even called her mom. She made a mental note to do that as she looked at the ring of discoloration along the drain to the sink. It needed to be scrubbed, maybe bleached, re-enameled, or torn out. The whole bathroom was a gut job. She looked at a cobweb in the corner, wondering when the last time this room was cleaned, if this room had ever been cleaned. 

She left the room, struggling to get the latch to click, as she saw Randy waiting directly outside, again. This time he held a key up, dangling it with a smile that showed his teeth. 

"I got the queen," he stated. "Figured you'd want the space." 

"Thanks." They had both slept on his twin bed before, his chin pressed into her shoulder, breath reeking of booze. She didn't mind it. It was hard to complain about the stench when she smelled like a liquor cabinet herself. A queen might be nice, though. Married people had queen beds. Maybe they could get one, too. This could be a trial run. 

They were getting married. 

She knew herself well enough to know that she wouldn't chicken out. She had committed to this, and she'd stick to her commitment. Save for an act of God, she'd be Mrs. Sharon- she didn't know his last name. She was marrying someone whose last name she didn't know.

They went back to the car, parking it in silence. Randy made a move to open the door for her as they sat directly in front of room 129. She jumped out of her seat before his hand touched the handle, nearly smacking him in face. 

"I can take care of myself," she snapped, smoothing her shirt down. It'd crept up a touch, exposing the bump of her stomach. How did she ask him what his last name was? Did she just wait until they were filling out paperwork and glance at his forms? Was their paperwork for getting married? 

She was screwed if there wasn't. 

"Woah, it's like real," Randy looked intently at her stomach, ducking down to it's level. "I though you'd just gained the freshman fifteen until Carol told me." 

Of course Carol had ratted her out. She should have know better than to tell her. It had been a whirlwind of a day, with two tests, and a party that she hadn't felt well enough to attend. She'd pulled out her planner, making a few notes about projects, when she realized the days that were highlighted with pink were not days she had her period. Sometimes she was off, it happened. She was busy; she was stressed. It wasn't that out of the ordinary to miss a month.

It was out of the ordinary to miss three, and to vomit in the sink, even when not hungover. 

"Yeah, it's real," she rolled her eyes, snatching the key to unlock their door. She didn't want to talk about it. She had five more months to talk about it. It wasn't ridiculous to want a nice night with the man she was marrying. Who was she going to be? Mrs. Who? Would she just keep her last name? 

"Are you excited?" Randy asked, flipping on the light. The bedspread was floral, as were the curtains. It was busy, but there was a television directly in front of the bed, which did in fact look like a queen.

"About what?" She asked, sinking down onto the bed. Her back hurt, as did her feet. She flung her shoes off, knocking them against a desk near the window.

"We're getting married," Randy chuckled. "It's a big day, yeah?" 

"We're doing that tomorrow," she yawned. "Tonight I'd just like to rest and watch some TV." She'd have forever to deal with the consequences and rewards of their union. She'd only have right now to drift into a place of half sleep while watching Discovery Channel.

God, she hoped his last name wasn't stupid. Even if it was dumb, something like Butts, she was stuck. She couldn't back out just because his name was dumb. That wasn't a real reason not to get married.

"Hey," Randy whispered loud enough to be heard outside the room. "Hey, Sharon." 

"What is it?" She asked, turning to look at him and opening one eye. "I'm trying to sleep." 

"I know. I know," he said. "I know you are, but I just wanted to say, I love you."  He was a doofus. The way the light of the TV lit up his face made him look kind. He usually looked kind, so she supposed he was kind. "Goodnight, Sharon." 

"Goodnight, Randy." 

She prayed silently after creeping to the bathroom as he slept. It felt wrong to bring her problems to a God she wasn't sure was there, so she just brought one minor inconvenience.

Holy Father, please don't let his last name be dumb.


	7. No Children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sure yall are all on the edge of your seats and I'm sorry this took so long. I'm writing the chapters out of order and this (and unfortunately chapter 8) are the last on my list. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

 "It's not working, Randy. I just don't love you." 

Sharon hadn't meant to say those words out loud, but she said them. And once she said them, there was no taking them back. Once she saw the hurt flash across Randy's face, she knew she could never undo what she'd said. 

She didn't love him. She had tried and tried to love him, but she just didn't.

"It's working just fine," he snapped, collapsing onto the couch with a beer. 

He always had a beer. They had agreed to keep it out of the house, just until the baby, who he desperately wanted to name Randal Jr, was born. That whole agreement hadn't even lasted the time it took for her to get pregnant. They were still screwing nightly, tracking her periods after her birth control, when she saw the first beer bottle under the kitchen sink. 

She thought maybe it was a straggler. That despite how often she took the trash out and used the Windex, that maybe that bottle had been left over from two months prior.

She of course knew in her gut that it wasn't, but it was easy to push those feelings aside. Once you knew what the feelings were, it was easy to push them aside. She'd been able to keep reality at bay for the first two months of her pregnancy. She'd just assumed that whatever she found was a hold out, a left over from their previous life. 

Because they were going to be better people. They'd talked about this. They were going to work hard to be better parents. Now that he had a child of his own, he was going to strive to be a good example. There would be no alcohol in the house, because God forbid something bad happen to their precious baby. 

At first she brought it up, casually. Mentions over dinner as she spooned macaroni into Shelly's mouth about an unusual bag in the trash can, one with the logo from their favorite liquor store. How strange that was, what were the odds that someone passing by would throw that bag in their cans, right? 

Oh yeah, for sure, Sharon, he'd replied. Coincidence is funny like that, he added. He didn't cop to it when given the chance, so she tried to ignore it. She tried to ignore the money missing, and the late nights and the crumpled receipts from the bar. It wasn't around her, so he wasn't tempting her. He wasn't putting her health, their babies health at risk. 

Lord knew she needed to drink less anyways. As much as she wanted to drink, she knew it was bad. It wasn't something she could keep doing like she had been. She wasn't a teenager anymore, not a college coed who could do whatever she wanted. She was in her twenties, if only barely, and it was time to get her things in order. Part of that, a large part of it, was consuming alcohol responsibly.  

"It's not working," she said, after much silence. He was drinking, staring blankly ahead at their television. They weren't particularly well off, not the budget was balanced, but Randy had demanded they own a nice TV. It was a big box, the largest one she'd ever seen in someone's house. 

It was the most expensive one she'd ever seen, too.

"It is," he shrugged, digging in the cushions for the remote with his free hand. "Hey, Sharon?" 

He asked her that like she wasn't trying to be serious. Like she hadn't just waddled downstairs after putting her three year old to sleep. Like she wasn't leaning against the wall, exasperated. He was supposed to be helping her, but more over, he was supposed to be sober. 

"What?" She sounded hostile, but she wished she could sound more hostile. She wished there was a way to drive her emotions home. She was furious. 

She could leave now. She could leave and get child support, forever. Or at least until this one was 18. She could make it work, she was sure. Sure the divorce would be messy, but at least she'd be gone. She'd be free of him. 

"Can you get me a beer?" He asked, shaking his empty like she was some kind of slutty waitress. 

"No," she said, trying to remain calm as she seethed. She wasn't a barmaid; she was his heavily pregnant wife. Pregnant with a child he'd personally requested. 

"Come on, Sharon," he pushed, going back to search blindly for the remote. She knew where it was. She could have told him that it was in the top drawer of the entertainment center, but she didn't. She might have if he had asked her, but he didn't. 

There was a fairly large chance that she wouldn't have told him even if he asked.

"Just one more," he said, sighing as he gave up his search. She thought about grabbing the remote and hurling it at his head. She knew she was a poor marksmen, and if she just hit the china cabinet, she'd be the one cleaning up the mess. 

"Fine," she said through clenched teeth. "Fine." 

She did her best to walk quickly to the kitchen, which was a feat. Her feat had swollen in her shoes, and when she finally pried them out, the ache didn't seem to go away. She had tried elevating them, for the thirty whole minutes she had between she got home with Shelly and when Randy came home work.  She was careful to avoid the lip where the dreadful carpet turned into tile, stepping nimbly as she could. 

She had almost fallen once, earlier in her pregnancy, but was lucky to catch herself on the handle to the fridge. Maybe she wasn't lucky. Maybe it would have been better if she had fell, and then it would have been an honest to God accident, and she could have gotten out of this whole mess. 

She shook her head as she pulled open the fridge. There was a twelve pack, one she couldn't drink, sitting in the middle shelf. Two cans were already missing, the clear plastic hanging limply from the end. She could have had one. She wanted one. 

She placed a hand on her stomach. No, she was not going to have one. She wasn't going to burden this child more than he'd be burdened by his circumstances. Their house was a hellscape, and his parents were a nightmare, and his sister was probably retarded. That's what daycare had said. 

She wasn't going to get it checked out. Hearing that one more thing was her fault wasn't at the top of her agenda. She knew this whole mess was her fault. There was no way to avoid it. She grabbed a beer, delighting in the way the cold metal felt against her hand. The can was sweaty and slid a little in her grip. She didn't like her beer too cold, maybe it was a hold over from that awful party, with what was maybe the worst beer she'd ever taste, and that was maybe the worst night of her life. 

She went to pop the tab, then stopped herself. She had self control. She wasn't a wild animal who couldn't control herself. She had will power. 

She wasn't Randy for fuck's sake. 

Instead of drinking it, she shook the can furiously. She was tired, but she shook her arm wildly, her hand in a vice grip around the can. 

He'd get his beer. He didn't tell her not to shake it to hell. He didn't tell her to hurry, or to bring it right this second. If he wanted to make demands, they might as well be specific. She briefly considered nuking the damn thing, before remembering what her high school home etc teacher had said about microwaves and metal. 

Not the part where she had made it clear that microwaves were for women who were cheating their families out of good home cooked food. Microwaves were lazy, and she wasn't supposed to be lazy.  She remembered the bit where she warned about metal. How it'd spark into flame, so that was out of the question. The oven would take too long, so she just shook it a little more. 

She waddled back into the living room, dropping the can into his lap from behind him. It hit him in the crotch, she'd heard the air leave his body in a hiss. Good, she thought. Good, let him be a little uncomfortable for a second. She didn't look back at him as she tromped up the stairs. 

She did smile when she heard the string of curses. He screamed loudly, shouting that she was a dumb bitch, among other things she'd rather not think about. 

Maybe she was a stupid slut, but she was the stupid slut who got his beer, that he wasn't supposed to be drinking, so he ought to be nice to her. She didn't look when she heard his footsteps on the stairs. 

She thought about worrying about what he was going to do when he caught her, but she couldn't bring herself to care in that moment. She didn't climb any faster than she usually did; she just continued eyes straight ahead like she was a horse in blinders. 

She couldn't hear what he was screaming, or she could hear it and didn't care to process it. He never laid a hand on her as she shuffled to their bed. They had settled on a queen, which was nice. Their first marriage bed, back in Vegas, had been a queen. She'd had an affinity for them. Even if their marriage had been a shit show, where Randy was so drunk he had to lean on some fat old man in an Elvis costume for support. He couldn't drive them home that night, so they'd stayed in the seedy motel for an extra night. She'd learned that his name wasn't stupid, but hell if he wasn't. He came in the first two minutes, which was fine. She didn't want some long drawn out thing. It was hard enough to lift herself on and off of him in any kind of rhythm. She was secretly happy for it. It meant that when he passed out immediately after, she could scoot his body to the edge of the bed and sprawl out in front of the TV. 

But she liked their bed. She liked their bed not because it was  theirs, but because it was big enough to lay there without touching him. That was the real miracle of a queen bed. They didn't sell that in the ads, but the space was what made them worth the money. 

"Are you listening?" He asked. She didn't say anything as she climbed in the bed. Her back hurt, her feet hurt, and her head hurt. He was drunk. 

He was always drunk. 

"Why aren't you listening, Sharon?" He asked, again. She didn't say anything. She struggled to roll over, closing her eyes and patomining sleep. So what if she was on top of the comforter and fully dressed. It wasn't the strangest thing around here. 

No the strangest thing was that she was still here. She could leave. She was pregnant with his child and she was fairly certain that if she bolted, she'd get child support. She'd stopped by an attorney's office the other week. 

Colorado was a no-fault state, which means there wouldn't be any blame assigned to her. Not by the state, at least. 

Sure her friends would assign whatever wherever they wanted, and she was certain that her family, though they didn't talk to her much, would credit the whole mess as her fault. She was the woman, after all. She was supposed to be subservient and obedient. Those are the traits that made good wives, while no one seemed to care what traits made good husbands. 

"Listen to me," he said, and she heard the beer open, the spray of liquid erupting from the can. She smiled, despite her best efforts not to. The can clanked to the ground, still fizzing as he jumped, then stumbled, presumably falling directly on his ass. 

"What did you do," he asked. She peeked over her shoulder to watch him push up of the carpet, beer splattered all over his button up shirt. Good riddance. 

"I didn't do anything." 

"You shook my beer," he was cussing her of sabotaging him. And maybe she did, but had done it first. He had thrown the first blow, and she merely retaliated. Retaliation was not the same as attacking unprovoked. 

"You're not supposed to have any beer," she groaned, sitting up as best she could. In the end she settled for all four pillows on the bed stuffed behind her head and back, to just slightly elevate her. 

"I can have what I want, Sharon," he said pointedly.

"You said no beer until the baby-" 

"Randal, his name is Randal," he butted in, sitting on the bed next to her with a frown. She could smell the booze as it dripped off of his shirt onto their bed. She'd have to wash the whole bedspread if she wanted to be free of the smell.

Part of her wanted to keep it around. She liked the smell of beer, even if it was a tease for something she couldn't have. She could probably have one. That'd be fine, right? Just one beer? 

"His name isn't Randal," she replied. If she kissed him, he'd taste like beer. God, she missed alcohol. Maybe she could stay with her folks for a bit. If she begged, they might let her come home for a few months, at least until the baby, not Randy, his name wasn't going to be Randy under any circumstances other than death during childbirth, was born. 

"We agreed that was gonna be his name." 

"We agreed we wouldn't drink." These were agreed upon facts,  sure. One being broken seemed like a good enough reason to get out of the other. 

"His name is Randal," he pushed, grabbing her hand. His fingers were sticky, must have been the beer. She hoped it was the beer and not remnants of the Sloppy Joe's she'd slapped together for dinner. She didn't even use hamburger buns, just white bread. Knowing Randy, there was no way to be sure he'd washed his hands in the two hours between then and now. 

"His name isn't Randal," she snapped. 

"Then what's his name?" 

"His name is Stanley." It was the first thing that came to her mind. She knew, from her two semesters of college, that if you were going to replace something, you needed something to replace it with. You can't replace something with nothing, so she'd pulled the first name that came to her mind. 

"Who the fuck do you know named Stanley? Sounds like a pussy name to me." 

She felt her face grow red, but he hoped he couldn't see it in the low light of the bedroom. She didn't want him to have the satisfaction. She realized, in short order, that she didn't want him to have any satisfaction. She wanted him to be miserable, at least as miserable and unfulfilled as she was. 

"My grandfather, who is dead," she lied. She shouldn't have lied, but what were the chances that she'd ever be called on it? They weren't going to Kentucky, not anytime soon. And he'd forget it, surely. He was drunk. Drunk Randy didn't remember anything. 

"Oh," he walked it back, which was exactly what she wanted to happen. "Sorry." And if she had to lie, to make it happen, then she would. He was an asshole even if their names had been Milton and Thomas. She wasn't naming her son those names, no. 

In truth she knew where the name came from, though she was surprised it sprung to the front of her mind so quickly. Recently there was a patient at the clinic, a man who went by Stan, a little older than her, who wanted a nose job. Sharon didn't think he needed a nose job, but in her line of work, the customer was right, or some other bullshit Tom spouted off at will. She had made a passing comment on how he was attractive, and he'd blushed, actually blushed with the color spreading all across his perfect cheekbones. Then he did the damnedest thing, he told her she was hot. 

She wasn't hot, not when she sat behind a desk, baby bumped covered by the lip of the bar. Randy hadn't told her she was attractive in who knows how long, and in his defense, she wasn't. She hadn't been all that attractive when they met, and after Shelly it was all downhill. But he almost, just almost made her believe it with the way that blush spread up to his ears and his eyes crinkled at the corners. 

But she was married and she had chose Randy. She groaned, shifting in the bed. She'd spent too long fantasizing about something that wasn't ever going to happen. She was foolish like that, she'd realized. It was an immature hobby she couldn't seem to break herself of. 

"You promised you wouldn't drink," she started, hoping that she'd found some kind of high ground, even if it wasn't rightfully hers. He didn't know she'd spent the last two minutes thinking about a man she'd met at work. For all he knew, she was deep in thought about her deceased Paw Paw named Stanley. She stifled a giggle. It wouldn't help her case to be laughing. 

"I know," he sighed. "I'll stop, okay? I'll be better. For," he gulped, "for Stanley." 

"Good," she smiled, maneuvering the blanket over herself as best she could. She kicked her feet out, half hoping Randy to help her, or at least get off of the blankets, but he didn't. Once she had herself covered she offered him a canned goodnight, and shut her eyes in earnest. 

"I'm gonna go downstairs and throw it all out," he said, pressing a kiss onto her temple. "I don't need this crap," he added, the bed springing up once his weight was removed. She smiled as she drifted off to sleep. 

Things could always change. Maybe Randy could be like that Stanley guy, and sweep her off her feet. She took comfort in that as her last thought before she fell unconscious. 

When the mechanical monotonous beeping of their alarm woke her, he wasn't in bed next to her. Maybe he had arose first, it was known to happen, even if it was uncommon. Maybe Shelly had woken in the middle of the night and he had decided she needed a break, so they were downstairs making breakfast. 

As she slouched out of bed, with her clothes still on, she decided it was best not to let her hopes grow too large. If he was just up with Shelly, and she had to make breakfast, that would be fine. She'd be happy for that, too. Or if he was just awake, watching sports highlights on ESPN. 

When she reached the base of the stairs, she realized that she had been dumb to hope at all. He hadn't made breakfast, or taken care of Shelly, and the TV wasn't on. 

No, when she found him, he was surrounded by empties, the ones she remembered him promising to throw out. 

It was a long shot to think he'd stop, anyways. He'd always liked the beer more than her, and even if he didn't have the beer, would he even be tolerable sober? He was intelligent, and sort of smart ass, and that sort of thing drove her nuts. He was easier to handle when the alcohol acted like a silencer. It made him a little dumber, a little slower to reply.

It gave her a fighting chance at winning an argument with him. She didn't have that on the rare occasion he was sober, and she liked the upper hand. She liked knowing that she held a trump card, even if it was because her opponent was handicapped. 

It was his own choice to stunt himself this way, she thought as she gathered the cans into her arms. He didn't have to drink from the moment he got off work to the moment he went to sleep. He could chose not to do it, just like she had. 

Maybe it was better if he was a drunk, she thought as she tossed the cans into the garbage. 

He'd probably stick around longer if he kept himself in this kind of state, and she didn't her marriage to dissolve, not really. 

And as a sign of good faith, she woke him up, made breakfast, and got Shelly ready, all without a single complaint. She didn't love him, sure, but she loved the stability the union brought to her life, even if it was at the cost of her patience. 

Things were easier with two parents, and she certainly didn't want to handle two kids alone, even if he was a good for nothing drunk who couldn't even abstain for the time it took to make a baby. It'd be better for Stanley, and Shelly, if she could just hold it all together. She could feel it.


	8. See America Right

 “Well, we went out California way,” Randy said, the smile never wavering from his face. “You kids should consider yourselves lucky. We never took any trips like this back in my day.”

“Be quiet, Randal,” Sharon hissed from the passenger seat. He didn't know what had climbed up into her vaginal and died, but he certainly didn't want to be the one to fish it out.

He hoped she wasn't on the rag, because he didn't want to deal with the crimson tide for the whole drive back. Knowing his luck, she was definitely PMSing.

“Isn't California nice?” He asked, making eye contact with the kids in the rearview mirror. “Say goodbye to California kids.” Maybe they could come back under better circumstances, later. He'd always wanted to go to Disneyland. Maybe he could just take the kids, hell, he'd take Shelly if he didn't have to take Sharon.

She was such a spoilsport. Sure, they'd taken this trip for internet, but they could at least enjoy the sights on their way out. It didn't need to be all business no pleasure.

"It'd be nice if you'd just shut up," she spat, crossing her arms over her chest. "Just drive us home." 

"Alright, well, kids," he cleared his throat, raising his eyebrows as he tried to make eye contact with Stan. His head was leaned against the window, breath making a fog on the windows. He must have been enjoying the scenery; it was pretty out here. He coughed again, "what was your favorite part of the trip?" 

"My favorite was when we got kicked out of a refugee camp because you came all over the damn computer," Sharon barked, knuckles white as she pulled at her seat belt. It had to be her time of the month. There was no other explanation for this sort of behavior. 

No other feasible reason she could be so snippy with him. 

The truth of the matter was she was just a huge bitch once a month, moody and unreasonable. He couldn't even bring it up, because whenever he tried to she just bit his head off. And not in a sexy way. 

It'd be one thing if she was a bitch in a sexy way, like a dominatrix or something like that, but she wasn't. She was just a bitch, like a school teacher, and not a sexy one of those, either. No, she was an old shriveled up hag once a month. Some months he thought maybe she had two periods. 

He read on the internet, way back, that sometimes women could get two periods a month. Apparently, a woman could bleed all month, just one huge long period. At least once a year her period had to be a non stop affair. Not that he could ask her, and he didn't quite have the guts to dig in the trash to see if there were tampons,  

That shit was gross as hell. He didn't need to see it. 

"Well, I really liked the mountains," he said with a scoff. He wasn't going to talk about her period, that wasn't the discussion he wanted to have in a small enclosed space. 

"I liked being on the no fly list," she groaned. From the corner of his eye he could see her head leaned against the dashboard. Maybe they'd get into an accident and her head would hit harder, that could be nice. Not kill her, no, she didn't need to die. 

But a broken jaw would be nice. She'd have to be quiet and his ears could get a little bit of rest. He peered up in the rear view mirror again, and saw that Stan had his seat belt fastened. He didn't check for Shelly before he slammed on the breaks in the middle of the road. 

Sharon's head banged into the dashboard with a thunk, and then a sharp curse. She sprung back up once the car was fully stopped, and he didn't to see if she was glaring at him. She probably was, but the real question was her jaw broken?

"Randy, I swear to Christ," she said, enunciating every word. Damn it. Maybe next time. 

"I thought I saw a deer," he shrugged, putting his foot back on the accelerator as a truck whizzed passed him on the right side. The eighteen wheeler honked, and Randy glanced up just in time to see him throwing the bird. 

Fuck him, too.

"Did you?" She asked. He could feel the heat of her glare as he looked to change lanes. He shouldn't have done that stunt in the left lane, but he had to do it. It was worth the chance to get her to shut up. 

"Yeah, must have just run by," he said, looking back at Stan with a smirk. He didn't look back, but he probably enjoyed it. He knew that you didn't have to sit there and listen to a woman bitch. If he absorbed one thing from his Dad, he hoped that was it. 

"Randy," her voice was like nails on a chalkboard. It grated on everyone of his nerves. If he said there was a deer, she should believe him. He was her husband and wives were supposed to believe their husbands. It was their job. 

"What, honey?" He asked, watching cars pass him, on the left this time, as their vehicle, strapped down with all of their possessions. struggled to accelerate up a hill. He supposed it was technically a mountain, but it wasn't a winding road or anything, just a slope the car didn't want to climb.

"Never mind," she huffed. Why say anything if she wasn't going to follow through? Why bother? Was she just trying to annoy him? Two could play that game. 

He fiddled with the radio dial, switching it to AM. He turned the volume up, about halfway, and held back his grin as static filled the car. He started the scan feature, and waited for the most annoying shock jock to make himself or herself known. 

That didn't happen, but he did find a station that seemed to only play polka. 

So Polka it was. He bobbed his head to the music, nodding along to the beat as she recrossed her arms over her chest over and over. Out of the bottom corner of the rear view he saw Shelly hold out an earbud from her iPod to Stan. He shrugged as he took it, placing his hand over his uncovered ear. 

He knew Sharon didn't have an iPod, and he knew that she wouldn't say anything about the station. She said as they pulled of the encampment, the ink from the fingerprinting still wet on Randy's hands, that he could pick the station. He had been polite and asked, and she had bit his head off. But in her little rant, she said that she didn't give a damn about the station, so that was that. 

He hoped she liked his choice. Well, honestly, he hoped it drove her bat shit. He looked over every couple of miles, dopey smile on his face, to gauge her reaction. At first she was just tight lipped, her eyes cast straight ahead. She didn't even turn to meet his eyes. 

He turned it up louder. He hummed along to songs he didn't know, occasionally honking the horn in joyous agreement with the melody.

She still didn't say anything. 

He had to up his game. That became apparent. 

"I'm going out Cali-for-ney way," he sang, off key, with the melody of this song as best he could. 

"Dad, stop," Shelly said, with her lisp. He smiled, taking his eyes off the road to pivot his body in the seat to sing directly to her. "Dad!" He waved his hands at her, and started singing again. 

Upsetting Shelly might be the way to upset Sharon. It was worth a try.

"Shelly goes out Cali-for-ney way," he sang, raising his eyebrows out at her. 

"Goddamn it, Randy!" Sharon screamed as the car jerked, pushing his face into the side of the passengers seat. There was a clank, another jerk, and then a hiss, all right after each other. He slammed on the breaks as best he could, but the car stopped before he could stop it. 

He noticed the music had stopped. There was no sound, save for the whirl of cars, a drip of something, and the hiss of the engine taking it's last gasps. They hit the side of the mountain. A few small rocks tumbled down onto the windshield, causing spiderweb cracks. The hood was crumbled like a tossed piece of paper and a black smoke rose up toward the treetops. 

Oh fuck, why did she turn them into the mountain? Did she hate Polka that much? 

"Nice going, Sharon," he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. 

"You're welcome," she said, sitting straight up in her seat, rubbing her neck where the belt dug in. "Everyone okay?" 

"The car's not okay," he said. Of course everyone wasn't okay, she'd totaled the damn car. 

"I'm talking about the people," she spoke in a low, harsh whisper, "the kids, you idiot." 

"I'm talking about how you drove us into the mountain because you don't like Polka!" He unbuckled his seat belt, and pushed on the door. It took a good shove, but it finally popped open, and he stumbled out onto the shoulder. 

Did he have signal in the mountains? Did they still have roadside assistance? He wasn't sure. He dug his phone out of his pocket, smirking as caught a glance of Sharon, face red, as she looked at the kids. Oh, he did have signal, that was good. 

He scrolled through his contacts, until he found his insurance agent. Tom, he was just Tom in his phone, and Randy didn't really care to know his last name. He could help them get a tow out, and if he couldn't then they'd just hitch a ride to the closest town. He'd seen a sign for Reno behind them, before the music. 

He'd always wanted to go to Reno. 

The conversation with the agent was quick. He could apparently pinpoint where they were by phone GPS which would have been cool if it wasn't so terrifying. They were getting a tow to Reno, and the could wait it out to be fixed. 

At least one good thing would come of this trip. 

They didn't speak to each other as they leaned against the car. Instead Randy looked at the wall of the mountain. He could see the groves from where they jammed the dynamite into the mountain. A honk jarred him from his sightseeing. 

A gruff older man helped wheel their car onto the back of his truck. They all piled into the front of the cab, wordlessly, riding the twenty miles to Reno silently. Stan and Shelly sat between Randy and Sharon, with Randy pressed against the door. 

The man did not play Polka music, which was almost too bad. Randy wanted an extra little jab to piss Sharon off before he spent the day tomorrow while they waited for their car to be fixed, or totaled, at a casino. She shouldn't have deliberately crashed their, his, the car was his, his car. 

As soon as they hit city limits, his data came back, and he spent the rest of their silent trip scrolling through reviews of the casinos. He could find the loosest one, the one that would let him drink the most, and then at least he'd have something good from this whole ordeal. 

He was gonna get super wasted, and Sharon could antique shop, or whatever it was she liked to do. The kids were old enough to camp at the hotel room alone. They'd have cable, right? All hotels had cable, and they could watch while the two of them spent some time apart. 

As he pretended to listen to the mechanic, he wondered if he could convince the kids to demand to go with Sharon. He couldn't be obvious about it, but Shelly and Stan would grate on her nerves, and she deserved it after that stunt. 

"We just over-corrected to avoid a semi," Sharon said to the man in blue coveralls with greasy hands. "Honest mistake." 

There was a semi? She had to be lying to save her ass. That was so like her. She lied so that they'd get married, and she lied to get pregnant a second time. She was just a liar, it turned out. He'd let God sort that shit out, it wasn't his problem. 

Maybe he'd go to a titty bar, too. There was always that. When in doubt, add some dancing boobies, and it'd be a great trip. The guys were going to be so jealous, he couldn't wait to share it to his Facebook. Maybe the girls would take selfies with him. 

That'd be a great profile pic. The guys would be so jealous. He smiled blankly as he drove the rental to a hotel Sharon had found. He turned and stopped when ever she barked an order, until they were outside a Red Roof Inn. 

Not what he would have picked, but he was going to have a great day tomorrow, or tonight. He should start tonight and carry over until tomorrow. He sat in the car as Sharon checked them in, and returned with one set of flimsy key cards. He nodded when she talked, but really his mind was focused on the idea of motor boating some titties. 

God, he was glad the internet was back. He'd have to tell everyone about that. 

"Randy!" She yelled, putting her hand on his shoulder and shaking him. It wasn't a gentle shake, it was vigorous. Spousal abuse is what it was, he grumbled under his breathe. "What was that?" 

"Nothing, nothing," he cursed, looking back at Stan who had the bridge of his nose in his fingers. Shelly licked at her braces as the sun glinted off of the metal wire around her head. If she was his, she wouldn't have had such terrible teeth. The Marshes had good teeth.

Maybe he shouldn't go check through the yearbooks for people with fucked up teeth, for Shelly's sake. For her sake, of course, because they had agreed that they didn't want to know. Mostly because they couldn't. 

But Facebook was a thing now, so he could always ask who all slept with Sharon, and he could sift through that long list to see whose teeth were busted. He and Nelson could do that at the office once he got back. 

"You can drive to the side of the building at anytime," Sharon said, hands on her face. Why did she look exasperated? She was the one who crashed the car. If she hadn't steered them into the rocks, they'd have been fine. He turned the key in the ignition, and laughed to himself when he realized the car was already started. 

"Whoops," he chuckled, looking back at the kids again. They didn't laugh at his jokes, but he was sure they were amused. He remembered being a shitty little kid. This kind of stuff was comedy gold, kids just don't want you to have the satisfaction. He laughed harder as the car kicked as he shifted into drive. 

He drove, still laughing, to a parking spot near the dumpster. It was open, and with their experiences earlier, he didn't want to risk Sharon pulling them into another car. 

Once she was off her period, they have to talk about what was okay to do while driving and what wasn't.

"Were on the other side of the building, 205," she said, an edge to her voice. 

"Why didn't you tell me that?" Randy asked, shifting the car into reverse and turning back, hand on the passenger seat headrest, to check behind him. He just did a cursory glance, before gunning the gas. 

"I did," she groaned. "Let's just go in, get settled, and then we can get some dinner." 

"Oh," he shrugged, nearly hitting the back side of the dumpster. 

"Don't," she warned, unbuckling her belt as they drove around the parking lot. "Kids, take the bags upstairs and then come right back down. Your father and I are going to talk." 

"Oh boy," Randy said. Talking, that was his favorite thing to do with a hostile hormonal woman. Second favorite was driving cross country with one. Why was she so terrible on car rides? 

He shouldn't have married her after what a grump she was on the way to Las Vegas, plus she made him stop like every hour. Didn't women ever learn how to hold their piss? No, they were too busy learning how to bitch about stupid shit like lopsided ties and an unshaven face. Who could hold valuable information like bladder control, when they had to complain about what they called excessive aftershave? 

Not Sharon.

He jumped when the car doors slammed, one after the other. There went his chance to ask Shelly to sit in the car with them. She would stay more in control if the kids were in earshot. He popped the trunk on the rental, and turned to look at Sharon, whose mouth was in a tight line. He'd let her start, he thought with a smile.

She was pretty, at least. She'd stayed pretty. It wasn't like Sheila, who might have been pretty back in her hay day, but was a monster now. No, Sharon had a sort of hometown girl next door look to her, even in her thirties. He was lucky in that regard, but he wasn't lucky to be trapped in the car. 

"That's unacceptable," she glared as he snapped back to reality. 

"I'm sorry," he said, mindlessly. "I'm sorry that I was unacceptable." 

"Did you even hear me?" She asked, rolling her eyes. Was she wearing makeup? He leaned in closer to look at her eyelashes, to see if they were smeared with mascara. He couldn't tell, but he supposed that's how makeup was supposed to work for older women. 

"Yes, and I'm sorry. I was wrong," he bowed his head as he spoke, like a dog cowering before a newspaper. "I won't do it again." 

"Okay," she sighed. "And keep your eyes on the damned road," she laughed, putting her hand underneath his chin, tilting his head upwards. "You almost killed us." 

"Yeah," he agreed, making and holding eye contact. She was the one to get closer, pulling his head up further, and the one to plant her lips on his. He just sat back and enjoyed the ride. She was good at kissing, great at it even. 

She ran her tongue over his lips a few times before he took the hint to open up. They sat like that for a few minutes, wet open mouth kisses with occasional gasps of air. He snaked his hand underneath her blouse, grabbing her breast through her bra. She giggled, but made no effort to slap him away.

"Oh my God!" Shelly squealed. Randy jerked away, pulling his hand back into his lap as he saw her, face crimson, with her fists in balls. "I can't believe you guys!" She stormed off, kicking a rock from a flower bed. She missed the rock entirely, and instead kicked the curb. "Turds!" 

Sharon laughed, shaking her head as she pushed Randy, this time playfully. "Kids," she said through giggles. 

"Yeah," he agreed dumbly, wiping his mouth with his forearm. It was good to kiss. It was something they didn't do enough. They weren't spontaneous anymore. Not that he expected them to stay sex kittens throughout their entire lives, but he didn't think everything would fizzle out so soon. 

"Unlock the car, Dad," Stan said, pulling the door handle over and over, like that would unlock it. Randy hit the button four times, and each time Stan reached for the handle too soon, negating the effect. 

"Stop touching the door," Sharon said, still smiling. She didn't sound like such a bitch after a little stress relief. He didn't really want to have sex with her while she was on her period, but if they sent the kids to the lobby, put a towel down, and he wore a condom, maybe he wouldn't notice. It's not like it was that hard to just wash his dick. 

He hit the button, again, and this time it worked. After a few seconds of holding his hands in the air like a hostage, he pulled at the handle, and climbed in the back seat. Shelly followed shortly after, mumbling something about how her mouth her and how she hated everyone in the car. 

Randy put his hand over Sharon's as he put the car back into reverse. Shelly scoffed as she climbed in, and she hit Stan, for good measure. Neither parent commented on it, because really, what was the point? Siblings fought like cats and dogs, anyways. 

Hell, Jimbo was five years older, and only his half brother, and they still fought like crazy when they were younger. So Stan and Shelly were only half siblings, they didn't know that. Would they fight less if they did? It might be worth bringing up, even if it only bought them a minute of peace.

"Oh come on, you're not even brother and sister," he said, subconscious mind taking over as he pulled onto the street. Why had he said that? Why bring it up at all? He looked toward the driver side window as he felt Sharon's glare. She hit in him the shoulder, hard enough to sting. 

"So she's an alien?" Stan asked, sticking his tongue out. Ten year old's were so dumb. Unless Sharon had fucked an alien, which then he might not even be mad about it. How could he be mad about an extraterrestrial gang bang?

"I don't think so," he said, biting his lip as he thought. She'd look hot with an anal probe though, he decided. And if he had to get cuckolded, it should be by aliens. 

"You're brother and sister," Sharon grumbled. "And no one is an alien. Just sit quietly in the backseat until we get to the restaurant." 

"You're half brother and sister," Randy corrected, before he could grab the reigns on his mouth. "Not that it matters. It doesn't matter, not to me." 

"Shut up, you idiot," Sharon jabbed him in the ribs with her finger. "Shut up." 

"What is Dad talking about?" Shelly asked, looking around the car slowly. "Mom?" 

"Nothing. Your Dad just has some kind of brain injury," she put emphasis on those words, stressing them as she jabbed him again. "Probably from the accident." 

"That's too bad for him," Randy huffed. Soon after he shoved a hand over his mouth. This wasn't his day, maybe he did have a brain injury. It'd suck to have to say everything he thought, but if it was a real brain thing then he couldn't get in trouble for it. Nelson was a sex addict and he got to do whatever he wanted, pretty much. It seemed to work out really well for him. 

"Do I have a brain injury?" Stan asked putting his hands on the side of his head, fingers splayed through his hair as he felt for who knows what. You couldn't feel brain injuries, didn't they teach these kids anything? Apparently not, Randy laughed as Stan kept searching his head. 

"What is Dad talking about?" Shelly repeated. "What is he talking about?" She asked, again, louder. 

"Don't worry about it, sweetie," Sharon cooed. "He's just being silly, you know how Dad's are. They're silly." 

"Yeah, haha, look at me, Mr. Silly Man," Randy waved his hands in the air as they merged onto the freeway.

"Grab the damn wheel!" Sharon screeched. "And everyone hush." 

"Sorry about your period," he grumbled, grabbing the wheel and flicking on his blinker as Shelly pouted in the backseat. 

"Sorry about what?" Sharon asked. "Did you just say what I think I heard?" 

"I said, sorry that I'm an idiot," he saved it, which meant it probably wasn't a brain thing. God, he wanted a drink. Maybe if he got good and drunk enough, he could forget about this whole conversation. 

Maybe if he got Shelly drunk, she wouldn't remember it either.

"Ugh, I hate all of you turds," she lisped, crumpling in on herself in the backseat. She wasn't very bright, so of course she didn't catch on. Stan perked up though, looking around the car slowly. He made a face, his lips wrinkled together and eyebrows knitted. Then his eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Sharon swiftly turned on the radio, cranking the volume. 

"We love you too, Shelly," Randy said, scanning the horizon for a suitable restaurant. There wasn't a lot in Reno, and for a while, longer than was probably normal or healthy, he thought it was a made up place. It had it's own TV show with some of the most inept cops he had ever seen, and their cops were pretty fucking stupid. 

He drove within the speed limit, signaling every time, just in case officer Dangle pulled him over. He didn't think he'd be able to talk his way out of that ticket. He didn't think anyone was smooth enough for that. 

"Pull in here," Sharon said, sighing as she tapped her fingers on the window. It was a mostly empty shopping center anchored by a Best Buy. What did she possibly need from Best Buy? He didn't know, but he knew better than to ask her for an explanation. 

No, this was the kind of thing that he'd ask after a couple of beers once they were back home. She'd never give her a straight answer after he let those bits about Shelly slip.

"Randy," she wasn't as shrill as she usually was, but still it was grating. He pulled the wheel hard, hitting the breaks as they headed towards the Best Buy. No one was at Best Buy, but that seemed pretty normal. People didn't really go to the one in their town either. He drove through the parking lot, passing a decrepit looking Applebee's and a mostly empty McDonald's. 

Why was she so set on Best Buy? Weren't they supposed to be eating? 

"Randy, stop the car," she said through grit teeth. He did, putting on the breaks in the middle of the lot. He was trying to find a closer parking spot if they were going to do some pointless window shopping. It's not like there wasn't better spots closer to the door; they weren't busy. "Not here," she groaned. 

Why couldn't she just tell him what she wanted? Why did she have to be like this every time she got her period? It wasn't that hard to just tell him that she wanted to walk to the store from the back of the lot. Why were her communication skills so lousy? 

Maybe he could go get a beer in Applebee's while she snooped around the store with the kids. It was too hot to leave them in the car, and he didn't want them sitting next to him at the bar. Nothing would ruin his buzz faster than the kids arguing with each other while he drank flat, overpriced beer.

"You getting out?" He asked, turning down the radio so he could hear her. He looked over to see her mouth moving, like she was saying some sort of silent prayer. She ran a hand through her short hair, jostling it, before turning to look him dead in the eyes. 

"We're going to eat, Randy," she said calmly. It was an eerie kind of calm, like a school teacher who was about to call a parent, or a cop about to arrest a criminal. "As a family," she clarified as he watched, dumbstruck. 

God, she was hot. He watched her lips move, not processing the sounds she was making. He leaned in to kiss her again, and this time was pushed away. It was a rough shove, and there was a feral sort of grunt from the back of her throat. Why was she sometimes okay with the contact, and other times adverse to it? How as he supposed to read these kind of situations? 

And they said men were dumb. Really women just couldn't send good signals. They were too emotional, too chaotic. He let his foot of the brake, and drove around the Applebee's. They didn't look open, but Sharon seemed insistent that they park, anyways. 

He knew better than to try to rationalize with a woman on her period. She was right about everything until it stopped, and even then, she'd still think she was right. It wasn't worth the fight he decided as he turned off the car, and made his way toward the seemingly abandoned building. 

People were inside, which startled him. He let out a sharp noise as he opened the door. He hadn't expected to be met with Tween Wave music and the smells of fried food. He didn't think the door would even open. He expected to pull the handle once or twice, rattling the locks that had to be on the inside of the restaurant, and then drive off to somewhere else. 

How did she know they were open? 

"Go in," Sharon said, opening the other side of the double door and ushering the kids in, like they were ducklings. They were about as bright as ducklings, he decided. At least Shelly was. A duck would have figured out that he wasn't her father by age thirteen. 

Did ducks even live to age thirteen? 

He pulled out his phone, a thank you dropping from his lips when it connected automatically to the wifi, and learned that if Shelly was a duck, she'd be dead. Huh, you learn something new everyday. 

He rushed through the second set of doors when Sharon called out his name. She'd secured them a booth, but instead, he found himself wandering to the empty bar area. He waved at them as Sharon scowled. 

"I'll be there in a minute, guys," he said, turning to position himself on a stool as his family sat less than five hundred feet away. The bartender arrived with a smile, a cute girl with a perky set of breasts, but not like stripper perky. They were still nice, in their own right. 

He ordered their special, three dollar drafts, and by the third beer, he couldn't even remember what brand he'd chosen. At these kind of small town restaurants, everything seemed to taste the same, anyways. The bartender was what they were selling, and they were doing a good job of that, Randy decided. 

"Did you know," he smiled, leaning against the counter, face red and propped up on his elbows, "my wife, she's on her period, and she, hahahaha." He dissolved into a fit of laughter while the bartender bobbed her head in agreement, brunet ponytail swaying behind her. Christ, he loved long hair.

Sharon used to have long hair, and she cut it without even warning him. They were married, and she just went and got rid of like her fifth best feature. She didn't ask for permission or anything. She just made the unilateral decision to get unhot. 

He drank, liberally. After a point, he was unaware what he was saying out loud and what he was merely thinking. The bartender seemed into it. She watched him intently, ignoring her other bar patrons. She was so into him, that she must have kicked everyone else out of the bar, just so they could get a private moment. 

"I know what you want," he slurred her, licking his lips to savor the last drops of beer that clung to his mustache. Girls dug mustaches, so he licked his lips, again. 

"Oh yeah?" She asked. She was so into this. It was like a porn. He entertained the idea of fucking her on the bar top, since it was just the two of them. He climbed a top the counter, pushing his glass onto the floor. It shattered, but he didn't flinch. 

"Yeah," he nodded. 

He was going to climb behind the bar, and they could do it on the floor. There'd be more privacy there, and beside, the counter didn't seem quite wide enough. He moved his foot to meet the ground, and heard a scream. 

Who was screaming, he wondered. Good thing he chose to do this behind the bar. Whoever was making all that noise couldn't get them there. Patrons weren't allowed behind the bar, but as he knew, their connection was special, and overruled that kind of silly suggestion.

He didn't take into account the condensation from his beer, and found himself flat on his back. He was splayed across the counter, face down as he looked onto the bartender's side and his feet hung into the bar area. 

"Goddamn it, Randy!" He heard a scream. Someone had their hands on his waist, and he moaned, pulling his shirt off to help them along. He didn't know what he was gonna do with her face down, but they could figure it out. He'd always wanted to be pegged, but he didn't know if he wanted his first time to be in an Applebee's bar. "Get the fuck down." 

"I'll get the fuck," he laughed, raising his ass in the air so his hands could fiddle with his pants button. 

"Ma'am," he looked up to see the bartender talking. Who was behind him then? Was he about to have a three way in Reno? He'd have to tell the guys, not that they'd ever believe that he got puntang in the bar of a chain restaurant. "Please remove your husband." 

Oh, it was just Sharon. She had a strict no threesomes rule, which was a total downer. She was a total downer.

He must have said that out loud, or she had mind reading abilities, because she smacked the back of his legs with her purse. 

"Let's go," Sharon hissed, yanking him by the feet. He launched backwards, toppling onto the cold tile floor, ass first. Oh man, maybe he wouldn't be able to tell his buddies this story. 

"She was so into me, you don't understand," Randy babbled, looking around as Sharon yanked him up by his arm. She was strong, like some kind of She-Hulk. Her period must have given her super human strength. She dragged him to the car, stumbling and lamenting his luck, where he tried to sit in the drivers seat. 

He was good to drive. It wasn't that far, and he wasn't that drunk. He didn't think the Reno police department really knew what they were doing, anyways. He doubted they could even use a breathalyzer machine, not that he was drunk. He was well within the legal limit. 

He knew his limit, and he'd been at the bar for at least three hours, and that's why she came looking for him. 

"Mom, I didn't get to finish my chicken tenders," Shelly complained, face against the glass as best she could with that stupid wire around her head. 

"Well I didn't get to have a threesome with the bartender," he countered as he was stuffed into the passenger seat. He didn't buckle his seat belt, and she didn't try to force him. 

"Mom, what's a threesome?" Stan asked. "Is a threesome why Dad isn't Shelly's Dad?" 

"Be quiet, Stanley," Sharon hissed, throwing the car into reverse, and speeding out of the parking lot.

"Dad's not my dad?" Shelly asked. "You had a threesome? Gross." 

"I can't believe you had a threesome without me," Randy complained. Typical Sharon. Make rules about what he couldn't do, while she just did whatever she wanted.

"No one had a threesome," she grumbled, slamming on the gas as they hit the interstate. Where were they going? Why were they in Reno in the first place? 

"Except you," he said, crossing his arms over his chest as he slouched in his seat. So unfair. He wanted to have a threesome like Sharon. Why did she get to have all these experiences he didn't? 

He was the one who rescued her from that abortion. She should be grateful. She should be having threesomes with him whenever he wanted. The tires screeched, and he was flung into the dashboard.

"Mom, what's an abortion?" Stan asked, once they had stopped completely. There was no stop sign or stoplight, but Randy didn't want to correct her. If she imagined a stoplight, then it was there. She was just having hysterical delusions. He read that happened sometimes during that time of the month. 

"It's where you kill a baby, you turd," Shelly said venomously. She paused, and the car was silent for a few seconds, and Sharon started driving. Beneath the purr of the engine all Randy could hear was the mouth breathing behind him. "Mom, did you have an abortion?" 

The car was quiet again.

"No," she said softly. "But we're not going to talk about this now, okay?" She sounded broken, like the time he backed over the cat with the car, and she'd watched it happen. Why were they talking about abortions, anyways? 

"When can we talk about it?" Shelly asked, voice barely a whisper. 

"Uh," Sharon stalled, pulling into the motel parking lot. God, Randy had to piss. Stan giggled, meaning he must have announced that to the whole car. 

"When, Mom?" She asked, louder. "I want to talk about it." 

"Well, I mean," she exhaled through her nose with a snort before putting the car in park. She didn't make a move to get out of the car as she killed the engine. "If you want, I guess we can talk about it at home, okay?" 

"I want to talk about it now," Shelly said, the wire around her mouth clinking into the window.

"I want a threesome," he whined. "Your mom is against other people getting what they want." 

"I want another dog," Stan offered. Randy snorted when Sharon slammed the car door, and stormed off toward the room. 

"She just hates fun," Randy laughed. "Fun hater," he screamed. It echoed around the car, hurting his own ears, but he liked to think she heard it over the slam of the door. 


	9. Peacocks

"Is that the last box?" Sharon asked. Randy wasn't sure as to why she cared, it's not like she was the one moving them. No, Randy was the one painstakingly taking boxes from the back of the U-Haul to the bottom of the stairs at the basement. 

"What did you pack, rocks?" He asked, dropping the box near her feet. 

"That box has your handwriting, smart ass," she chuckled, tapping it with her toe. He glanced down, and it was, in fact, a box  full of rocks. It was a class project he'd squeezed out of with a B, which was a miracle in and of itself. He didn't imagine he'd be the type to get sentimental after college, but even with graduation last week, he still held onto his old school things.

"Huh," he smiled at her, looking briefly at the ring on her finger, the one he'd put there, then at her swelling stomach. He'd done that, too. Or he was sure enough he'd done it to marry her. If the baby didn't look like him, he could always go and get a blood sample, and take it from there. 

That kid not being his was grounds for divorce, right? 

Was it divorce or was it an annulment? They'd only been married for a few months, so it's not like they had a long history together. He could still duck, if he wanted to. 

Not that he wanted to. Sharon was smart, and Sharon was pretty. She could also drink him under the table, which was a shocker. He couldn't just let a skill like that slip through his fingers.

Trudging up the steps, he pulled one of the last boxes from the trailer. It was light, with the word clothes plastered on the side with big block letters. It was Sharon's box, obvious from not only the hand writing, but how she'd used tape to seal it, and didn't just folded the flaps and hoped for the best. 

She was precise. It was something he liked about her.  She also gave a mean blow job. He wondered, as he cleared the threshold of his fathers house, if he could get one from her tonight. Sure, she was pregnant, but it's not like her mouth was pregnant. Randy was fairly certain from his limited sexual education, that mouths didn't get pregnant, and he'd also never heard of someone being double pregnant. 

Unless that's how twins were made. He could go to the library and look, or read through her pregnancy book, but he trusted her not to put them at any unnecessary risk. Anyway, it was time for him to look for a job, not waste time on silly questions. 

Girls didn't get double pregnant, he shook his head. If they did, he would have heard about it before. 

"You can put the box down," she teased, grabbing it from him. 

"Hey, you're not supposed to be lifting the heavy stuff. Doctor's orders," he ripped the box away, using too much force, and fell flat on his ass on the bottom step. The next step up hit his lower back, causing him to cry out. 

"Motherfucker! That hurts!" He howled, staying put on the ground with the box in his lap. 

"I can carry a box full of clothing, Randy," she argued, ripping it away. She didn't offer to help him up, she simply stepped around him, and he watched her sweet ass leave. 

"I'm okay, don't worry about that," he called after her as she walked to the other side of the room. "I'm not permanently injured or anything like that," he let his voice drop to a whisper, "just my pride, that's all. No one cares about a man's pride." 

"I can hear you," she sighed, "and, no, no I don't care. If you didn't keep treating me like an invalid, this wouldn't happen to you." 

"I'm just trying to take care of you," he rose to his feet, rubbing his back as he glared at the far wall. He didn't dare glare at Sharon. She was moody. "Whatever, I'm gonna finish unloading the truck and get a beer." 

"Ugh" she groaned, dropping down onto the beat up couch downstairs. "I want one." 

"Babies can't drink booze, honey," Randy said from the top of the stairs, looking down at her. "Hey, don't pick at the stuffing. Dad will get mad." 

"Like your Dad gives a fuck about this couch," she shook her head and craned it upwards. They made brief eye contact, that Randy shrunk from fairly quickly. She would pick a fight, that was one of her favorite activities. He didn't know if it was because she was pregnant, or if that's just who she was. They hadn't really spent enough time sober together to tell. She didn't do this shit while drunk, that's for sure. Or she did, and he just didn't remember. 

"I just want a beer, really bad. I know I can't have one, but Christ, I want one." 

Randy didn't comment on either count. He was sure his father would bring up the couch if they destroyed it any further, and he was sure that pregnant women couldn't have beer. He'd read the sign the one time he'd gotten drunk enough at a bar to stumble into the ladies room. The sign was clear, or clear enough that his drunken self could understand it. 

He pulled out the last box, more rocks, and carried it downstairs. He dropped it by the rest, then turned around to the fridge. He wanted a beer, and by God, for all the hard work he'd done, he deserved it. He popped the tab, taking a swig, then went back downstairs. 

Once he had safely navigated the stairs, he crept towards the couch. He could hear her snoring before he saw her. She was stretched out, feet kicked onto the arm rest, and a couch cushion under her stomach. She was beautiful, even with the trail of spit dribbling down her chin.

He'd still have fucked her right then. He didn't ask her though, knowing that if he woke her up there'd be hell to pay. She complained about not getting enough sleep, but she seemed to take a nap every goddamn day. Maybe if she stayed awake for the whole day, she would be able to sleep better a night. 

But what did he know? According to Sharon, nothing.

"We're gonna be a family, huh?" He asked quietly, sitting on what little space was left near her chest. He placed a hand on her stomach, on Shelly. They'd decided that her name was Shelly, after some arguing on her part for Margaret.  Margaret was a dumb name, he had told her. He could immediately think of a mean nickname for a woman named Margaret, large Marge, so he struck it from the list. 

He couldn't think of one for Shelly. He didn't think that hard, to be honest. He wanted to name her Shelly, and when they had a boy, he'd be named Randy. That's what you did, right? You named your sons after you, and your girls after things you thought were pretty. If they named her Diamond or Emerald, she'd become a stripper. He was sure of that. 

"I'm trying to sleep," she grumbled. "And is that a beer? If it's not for me, get it the hell away." 

"Babe, you can't drink beer." 

"Then it's unfair you can," she sat, struggling to push herself upright. "We should both be abstaining." 

"I just moved two dorm rooms worth of crap into my Dad's basement, so I think I have earned this." He had earned it. Moving was hard work, and if he couldn't have a beer at the end of a hard day, then what was the point of working hard? 

"It's unfair," she huffed, titling her head back to look at the ceiling. "Can't you just wait until the baby is born? We can drink together then." 

"I will drink with you," he said. "I can drink again. It's not like beer is a one time thing." 

"Ugh, fine, whatever," she huffed. "Where's the bed? I'm just gonna go lay down." 

"Why don't you want to stay up with me? We could christen the place," he suggested, raising his eyebrows as she stood up. She showed him her ass again, though he doubted it was on purpose. She wasn't enough of a minx when sober to do that kind of flirtation. He felt the need to reach out and squeeze, to show his appreciation. She was still hot, even when she was fat as hell. 

"Jesus, Randy," she yelled, swatting him away. "I'm not in the mood, obviously." 

"You haven't been in the mood for a long time," he complained as she turned to face him. "Most people have sex after their wedding, you know?" 

"Most people aren't four months pregnant when they get married," she countered with her hands on her hips.

"Well, I'm not pregnant," he huffed. "I have needs." 

"You've got a hand; your hand isn't pregnant," she stormed off. "I'll find the bed myself. How big could the basement be?" 

It wasn't very big. There were only three doors in the whole thing, and she'd already been to the bathroom. Part of him still hoped she'd open the storage closet instead of the bedroom, just to waste a little bit of her time. Maybe there'd even be a spider and it'd drop from the ceiling and into her hair. Yeah, a spider would be cool, but only if it was a Daddy Long Legs, one that couldn't hurt her. He didn't want her hurt, just inconvenienced and a little scared. 

That meant he loved her, right? Just a little jump, something to startle her. 

She found the bedroom, skipping the storage room all together. He supposed it being under the stairs was a giveaway. She laid down and Randy flicked on the old TV, watching some reruns of Mash as he nursed his beer. Once he was sure she was asleep, her breathing patterns consistent, he snuck back upstairs and dragged down a six pack. 

He watched bad antenna TV until well after the sun had set. He managed to work his way through all the beer, quickly slurping down the first two, and taking his time with the later half. He woke up, beer number seven resting in his lap as the morning news played in the background. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're reading this, I'd really appreciate some feedback, even if you dislike it. It feels a lot like navigating this thing blind, which is a new experience, if nothing else.


	10. International Small Arms Traffic Blues

It was a shock to the system that she was gone. He didn't expect her to leave; she'd never left before. Maybe for a night or two, sometimes with the kids, sometimes without, but they never made it to the point of separating their shit. 

She'd left that one time, but for rehab. It was different. She was out of control, drunk out of her mind, screaming and throwing plates at him. He didn't get like she did; they weren't the same. There was no sixty day program that would send her home to him at the end of this. There was no end in sight.

Hell, the house was on the market. 

"Another round," he sank his cheek onto the bar. The polished wood was cool, with dots of condensation smearing onto his face as he lay there, helpless. 

She was gone. 

So was her stuff. 

It was over. 

It couldn't be over, he wasn't prepared. They'd said they'd be married forever, in front of Elvis and everybody. They were going to bet the odds and stay in love until they died. He loved her, he still did. It was impossible to not love her, even if part of him hated her, a substantial part.

He stayed with her even after knowing that Shelly wasn't his. She owed him to stay. She wasn't the one who got to decide to leave. She forfeited that choice when she married him knowing that the baby wasn't his.

Who was she to call it off? Who was she to say it was over?How was she allowed to unilaterally decide that they were bad for each other? She wasn't allowed to just leave him, drunk and alone to waste his nights away with Skeeter and these losers. 

Stephen Stotch was her for Christ's sake. He couldn't spend time with him; he was a sociopath. Everyone knew it. Not only was he a sociopath, but he was a homosexual. And not like cool kind like Jimbo, he was the kind you'd think would molest little boys, like a priest or some shit. 

"I said, another round," he said, face still buried in the wood grain of the counter. It was a nice counter, with a nice patina, nice age. He always thought Sharon would like it, she liked antiques. She was into that kind of thing. Things that had the stench of age on them; just not their relationship. That was an old thing she could let go of. She cared more about old end tables on the side of the road than she did about him. 

He wasn't IKEA furniture for Pete's sake, he was valuable. If he was at the curb, he wasn't something to be passed by without a second look. He was like a grandfather clock, or some cool shit like that. 

Where the fuck was his beer? He wasn't drunk enough to handle this. 

"I'm comin', I'm comin'," Skeeter called out, his voice ringing in Randy's ears. He was too loud, this whole bar was too loud. His whole life, was arguably, too loud. 

"Come faster," he grumbled. He snorted out loud, a little inside joke. He never should have complained about that sort of thing to her. It was better to have a partner that lagged behind than to finish yourself off alone in a motel shower. 

The shower wouldn't have been so bad if the hot water didn't run out halfway through. 

"Keep bitchin' and I'll cut you of, I'll tell you what," Skeeter snapped. Randy heard the telltale rush of Sprite into a tumbler. He tried to wait patiently, until he heard the click of the glass against the counter. "I don't know why in the hell you're drinking Sprite and Jack." 

"Because you don't sell Squirt," Randy said, lifting his head up high enough to put the glass to his lips. It wasn't the same, not even close. It didn't bring him back to that evening, to that stupid party like he wanted it to.

In fairness, the last one hadn't either, neither had the one before that. 

He was hopeful, that maybe, just maybe, the next would. 

"Squirt ain't even a real soda," Skeeter snickered. Like his pain was funny. What could he possibly laugh about in the soul aching misery he was currently experiencing? 

"It's real to me," was all he could think to blubber back, mouth half closed around his drink. He chugged it, not bothering to let the awful taste linger on his tongue. There was a reason dark went with dark, and light with light. It was bad to deviate from the established systems; this drink was proof. 

"Randy, I'm as much for drinking your problems away as the next bartender, but maybe you ought to go home," Skeeter nudged a faux leather check book into his forearm. 

"I'm not done," he spat, looking at the bottom of his glass. His drink was done, but he held it up for another. He noticed the slurring in his speech, but decided, as was usual, to ignore it. He had bigger fish to fry than if he was too drunk or not. "I ain't got a home."

He didn't even know that too drunk was a state he could attain. 

Sharon could attain it, for sure, but he'd never gotten there. Sure, he'd been too drunk to drive, but that was rare. And he'd been too drunk to work, but he'd never just been flat out too drunk.

Maybe tonight would the night he got to that point. Maybe if he drank Skeeter out of Sprite and Jack, he could get to that point. And Skeeter, ever the benevolent bartender, brought him another. 

"You don't even look like you're enjoying 'em," he mumbled, dropping it off on the counter. 

"How do people enjoy anything?" Randy asked, choking back a sob. It was bad form to cry at the bar, and worse form to cry to the bartender. 

"Maybe they don't get shitfaced on bad drinks," Randy looked up to Skeeter rolling his eyes as he turned back towards the liquor. It was a Saturday night, he had other customers to look after, he supposed. It's not like they had a long established relationship from eleven years of patronage. Randy wasn't special, he might as well have been a drifter to Skeeter. 

Son of a bitch.

"I didn't know you made good drinks," Randy shot off, making the poor decision to sip the drink. He wanted to retch, but he kept going, swallowing little mouthfuls at a time. She'd drank this with him, well it was Squirt, but it was close. This was as close as he could get to her right now. If only he could see her, say he was sorry for whatever it was she thought that he did. He'd fight to make it right, he would. 

He turned around, looking blankly around the bustling bar. People were chatting, a few men playing darts as a busty blonde woman leaned on a high table next to them, pushing her breasts up like a rack. She was hot, and he should have been into it, and maybe last month, before his marriage dissolved into nothing, he might have been into it.

The men she was with were into it, both of them. 

"Can't even enjoy tits anymore," he sighed, taking another sip of his drink. Fuck, that was rancid. How on Earth did she finish as many of these as she did that night? She must have had six, at least, and he was on number four, and ready to throw in the towel. 

It must have been fate. It must have been fate that she was willing to get so drunk on something so terrible, just to stay in his company. If fate had been on his side once, maybe it would be on his side again. Yeah, maybe it wasn't over. Maybe they weren't really going to divorce, the lawyers were just to scare him into doing the dishes or taking out the trash more. Regular married people fights. 

It was working. He'd do the dishes every night and always take out the trash if that meant she would stay. 

Okay, he'd do it every other night, or maybe every third. He'd do it more if they could stay together, maybe he should tell her that. He thought up all the other things he could tell her as he looked around the bar, eyes skimming for something. He wasn't sure what he was looking for, but he was looking. 

What else would he tell her? He wondered, lips moving as he thought. He would tell her how much he loved her, and how sexy he thought she was. She was even sexier than the blonde chick, taking the cherry from that man's drink and eating it seductively. She was sexier than that, and he was manly enough not to order a drink with goddamn cherry in it at a bar. 

How would he word his feelings? He threw around phrases in his head for a while, hoping something would stick. He could tell her she was on his heart, or that she still gave him an erection. Those both seemed like good options. His eyes wandered to the windows at the front of the building and he gasped. 

There she was, standing outside the bar, a grocery bag in her hand, staring at him. She'd come to see him. It wasn't over, because there she was, staring at him like a deer looking at a semi truck. He yelled the first thing he wanted to say to her as he bolted towards the door. 

"My heart's penis has an erection! You give me a heart erection! I mean, I love you with all my penis!" He screamed, stumbling over a chair as he made his way towards the door. He landed face first onto the floor, banging his shin on a toppled chair on his way down.

It hurt, but not nearly as bad as the pain of being alone.

"Your bill!" Skeeter yelled above the bar, which had grown quiet. Randy looked around, pushing himself off the dirty ground with his palms. Everyone was looking at him, and the woman with the breasts, she was wearing shorts so short he could see the bottom of her ass cheeks.

Maybe Sharon wasn't sexier than her.

No, that was no way to think. Sharon was his wife, and the sexiest woman alive! Well, the sexiest woman he'd ever get to touch. She was a catch, that was sure. He was the best catch of his life, and she was outside the bar, and he was inside. 

He looked at Skeeter once he was on his feet, watching him rush forward, like he wasn't in here every other night to drink. He'd get his money, it would just maybe be tomorrow, or the next day. He'd get it ,though, he was good for it. He was always good for it. 

"Randy, pay your goddamn bill," Skeeter said, holding up that same black checkbook. He wanted to pay his bill, he really did, but the matter of Sharon was so urgent that he didn't.

Instead of paying his bill, he shot Skeeter the bird, and rushed, again, toward the door. 

And he fell, again. 

This time a leg of a fellow patron, probably Steven Stotch, because he was an asshole, tripped him and he took the brunt of the impact on the chin. 

"Pay your bill, Randy," Skeeter said, as Randy writhed on the floor in agony. He offered him a hand up, which Randy shoved away. He needed to be with Sharon, and fast. He needed to apologize for whatever it was she thought he did. 

"This is an emergency," Randy wailed on the floor. God, he was good for the tab, he was always good for it. It's not like he was going to stiff Skeeter, he wasn't. He just needed to see his wife, they were still married, and he needed to see her. 

He pushed himself off the floor, and balked when Skeeter stood in front of him, blocking his path. He wasn't just going to let it go. This was an emergency, an emergency of the heart. How could he be so insensitive? Did he not have anyone he loved? 

Wait, did Skeeter even have a wife? He couldn't think of one in all of their conversations. Maybe he was gay? He stood there, staring blankly ahead as Skeeter put a hand on his hip impatiently. He sort of looked gay. He could be gay. 

Why was everyone in town gay? 

Was Sharon gay? Was that why they broke up? It made sense for that to be the cause. At first he just thought she was hormonal, but he didn't think it could last that long. It'd been a month, and she wasn't back. Did South Park make her gay? 

"Pay your bill or I call the cops," Skeeter said, unflinching. Randy sighed, digging around in his pockets hastily. He was in a hurry, couldn't he tell? If this was one of those stupid movies Sharon watched that he didn't enjoy, at all, not even a little, everyone would tripping over themselves to help him get the girl. 

He tossed his billfold to Skeeter, and sidestepped him in the confusion. He had money in the wallet, and if he didn't he at least had a card he could swipe. He needed to go see her, and quick. 

He ran outside, the cold air nipping at his face. The taste of Sprite and Jack in his mouth made him grimace. It was a cursed combination. 

Maybe he and Sharon were, too.

He couldn't think that way. It wouldn't help him rekindle his marriage. He needed to fix it, and thinking that they were doomed wouldn't help. He looked around the building, leaning as he peered down the road. He stumbled, the weight on his legs unexpected, and fell to the concrete. 

She wasn't there anymore. Skeeter and Stephen Stotch had blown his one chance to see her again. Maybe he helped. Maybe if he hadn't run up such a tab, then Skeeter would have let him leave, no sweat. Maybe if he hadn't made such a public spectacle of the divorce, throwing things into the yard and breaking windows, Stephen wouldn't hold a grudge. 

No, Stephen would hold a grudge regardless. He was just an dickhole, and it didn't make sense to live his life in way that pleased Stephen. He was still mad that when they did coke together, Randy hadn't agreed to suck his cock. That was too gay, even when high. That was like, that was where another man peed. He couldn't just stick that in his mouth, all willy-nilly. 

He struggled to get off the ground, settling to rest on his hands and knees. All there was in front of him was an empty road with the occasional piece of garbage moving with the wind. 

She was gone, and he'd never get her back. She was the best thing in his life, and he'd never get her back. She was gone, forever. 

He crawled back into the bar, pulling up on the door, and walking in with a slouch. He retook his seat, and resumed drinking, Jack and Sprite. 

He drank until it was two in the morning, and Skeeter called him a cab. He didn't fight about it, he just climbed into the cramped backseat, and waiting to go home. Instead, he was taken to his motel room, which wasn't home. He didn't thank the driver as he got out. He walked up the stairs, slick with ice, or maybe he was just too drunk to keep a stable footing. 

He fell into his room, crumbling onto the bed. He didn't peel back the comforter, nor did he turn on the TV. He didn't remember sleeping. 

But he didn't remember crying, either. When he awoke beneath his was wet with what he could only assume were tears. It didn't smell like vomit, though his breath did smell like Jack. 

He called into work, and spent his day fantasizing about Sharon. How he could woo her back, and if it was even possible. After the sun had set, he walked back to Skeeter's, and resumed drinking. 

Before he went though, he stopped by the grocery store, and bought a single item.

A bottle of Squirt.


	11. Have To Explode

Sharon woke up with her face pressed against the cool wood of the table. She was in the kitchen, alone. 

Where was Randy? Where were the kids? She sat up, head pounding, and surveyed the room. A box of macaroni and cheese sat on the counter with the top of the box ripped to shreds next to an open can of corn. Did the kids do that themselves? She stood up, unsteady on her feet as her head pounded. The sun was out; it was dark when she passed out. What had she done? 

The broken dishes on the tile floor told a story. One she didn't want to remember, not that it was clear. 

She got drunk with Randy. He'd brought home a fancy bottle of wine, a gift from a coworker, and they had to share it, his insistence. That one bottle turned into a trip to the liquor store, which turned into pounding a few more bottles, which then turned into a fight. She peeked her head out the door, the sun was high in the sky, shining down on the yard. He was gone; his car was gone as was the mailbox. 

"Fuck," she hissed, the sun just made her headache worse. She shut the door, trying not to slam it. Anything to keep her hangover at bay. She walked up the stairs, clinging to the banister like a lifeline. First she opened Shelly's room, softly calling out her name before pushing the door open. 

She wasn't there, but neither was her backpack, and her pajamas were crumpled in a pile of her bed.

So were Stan's. 

She choked back a sob. They had gotten themselves ready for school, because she was too drunk to be woken up. They'd probably heard the entirety of their fight, too.  She couldn't remember the particulars of the fight, just that they'd yelled and Randy had stormed off. 

Maybe he went to work. 

Fuck, she didn't go to work. She opened Stan's door, quickly, flinching when it slammed against the wall. He wasn't there. Shelly had taken care of him, or he'd taken care of Shelly. It was probably some mix of the two. She groaned as she climbed down the stairs, trying not to take them two at a time. Falling down a flight of stairs would just make her day worse. 

And it was already a pretty awful day. 

She considered calling the school to check to make sure that the kids were there, but decided against it. If they were there, which she was fairly certain they were, it only made her look like a bad parent. She could push all the blame on Randy, but these kinds of lies had a tendency to unfurl themselves in time. 

What lie would she tell work? 

"I have a cold," she said aloud. The rasp in her throat made it convincing, no need to hold her nose as she spoke. "I have the flu," the flu was a better excuse. The timer on the over said that it was a 11:27 and the flu was a better reason to have slept through her alarms. 

"Sorry, I have the flu," she said again as practice into the dial tone of the phone. That sounded good. It was believable. She called up her boss, sniffling a few times as the phone rang, really getting into character. Tom answered mid sniffle, which worked in her favor. 

"I'm sick, Tom," she said, voice gravely. "I'll keep you posted about when I can come back." 

He told her to take care, and take all the time she needed. She hung up with a brisk thank you, then went back to the kitchen table, looking at the overturned bottle of wine. It hadn't tasted expensive, not really, but it had been a long time since she had anything. Shelly was a baby, or a toddler. She'd stopped when they'd tried to conceive Stan, and save for the odd slip up, she'd stopped drinking. 

She couldn't be trusted to drink. She wasn't like Randy. She wasn't like the Broflovski's. She took everything to the extreme, sucking down wine and vodka until she was blackout drunk, screaming who knows what while her kids were who knows where. 

What the hell was she going to do? She wanted another drink, and she vaguely remembered picking up two bottles of vodka, the good stuff. She didn't think she'd manage to drink both. Only one empty bottle leaned in the sink. 

No, she was not going to drink the second one. She just wasn't. She couldn't. 

"Sharon! Open up, dear!" That was Sheila, her condescending voice echoing as she pounded the door. "We need to talk!" 

"Not today," Sharon grumbled. She wondered what bullshit she was bringing with her today. Did the boys commit some kind of atrocity while she was out of commission? She hoped not, not today. 

"Sharon! I know you're home! I saw you at the table this morning!" 

Fuck. Fuck, this was bad. She didn't want to let Sheila into that part of her life, not on any scale. Sheila was the biggest gossip she'd ever seen, and the last thing she needed was her meddling. She smoothed her shirt as she walked to the door, hoping to look more put together than she was. 

She cracked it up, closing her eyes in the sunlight. It was too bright outside. Why couldn't it be cloudy and snowing? It was always cloudy here, why not now? Why did the weather conspire against her today? 

"Oh, Sharon," Sheila sighed. "What happened?" 

"Nothing happened," Sharon spat. "If you'd please, I'd like some alone time." 

"I saw Randy peel out of the drive way, he seemed to get your mailbox. He missed the later half of the driveway completely." Sharon rolled her eyes as she squinted at Sheila. She didn't need a play by play of the last day. She could piece it together on her own. She was smart enough to do that. She could have been a doctor. 

Instead, though, she was an alcoholic with two kids from two different men. No wonder her parents were so reluctant to talk with her.

"Thanks for the memo," she went to shut the door, but Sheila stuck her foot in, her skirt creeping up her thigh. "Sheila, I have things to do." 

"Like sober up? Your kids missed the bus," Sheila said, hands on the door, prying it open. She had brute strength on her side, as well as persistence, and after a long sigh, Sharon opened the door. Sheila was going to get in if she wanted to, might as well make it easier for all parties involved. 

"Did they?" Sharon asked, collapsing on the couch. At least the couch was clean. Their fighting seemed to be contained to the kitchen. 

"I drove them to school. Education is important, Sharon." She flinched at the dig. Sheila had her bachelors, as did most of Stan's' friends parents. They were older than her, or their first grader was their first child. Sheila was both. 

"I know that," she complained, leaning her head back to look at the ceiling. They'd meant to scrape the popcorn off the walls, but it was too hard. If something was too hard, it was time to quit, at least in the Marsh household. She looked for patterns in the dots while Sheila gave her a lecture. 

"You know, it's unacceptable to fall asleep at your kitchen table with a bottle of wine and a tumbler full of vodka. That's a very immature thing, and your children need an adult parent." 

"I know that," she repeated with a groan. "I've got a massive headache, can you please, please just go?" 

"No, I can't just go," Sheila squawked like a chicken, shattering her eardrums. Why couldn't she keep it down? If she'd seen the alcohol how come she didn't understand the hangover? "Sharon, you need to think of your children." 

"Can you talk softer?" Sharon asked, rubbing her hands over her face. She racked them through her hair, pulling once she reached the end. It was harder to get traction with short hair, but not impossible. 

"Is this the life you wanted to live?" Sheila asked, to her credit, softer, as she lowered herself down on the couch. The cushions sank with her weight, making Sharon off kilter. She tried to stay upright, but she was so caught off guard by the question that she allowed herself to lean into Sheila.

What the hell kind of question was that? Her head was pounding; her husband was no where to be seen. Of course, of fucking course this wasn't the life she wanted. She wanted to be a doctor, to stay single until she was in her mid thirties, to live in a city, a real one. She didn't want this. 

She didn't think anyone in the world could want this. 

Her response died in her throat, and instead morphed into a choked cry. It was a strangled sound, erupting out of her loud gasps and broken sobs. She was crying into the breasts of the most aggressive PTA mom in the district. Sheila was the hard ass who sold the most popcorn for fundraisers, who set the highest bake sale goals, and here she was, being vulnerable with her. 

Her body hadn't given her much of a choice, not really. 

"There, there," Sheila cooed, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, with one hand combing through her short hair. "Chin up, chin up," she repeated, tone even. 

"How do you keep your chin up when you keep, hic, keep fucking up like this?" Sharon wanted to know, she really did. 

"But for his grace, we go," she whispered, her fingernails scrapping against her scalp. They sat for a few still moments as Sharon's loud, desperate, sobbing subsided. It was tense, and deeply uncomfortable, to have your neighbor, your kid's best friend's mom, listen to you cry. 

Her life had become tense and uncomfortable, though. She should have been more adept at handling these sorts of situations. She couldn't remember her mother doing something like this, no, she was a good parent.  She didn't drink away her sadness and disappointment. She didn't do that sort of thing. She had religion, and if she was desperate for some sort of guidance, she went to church and asked for God's blessing. 

There was a church in town; she could go. There was no rule that said she wasn't allowed. Maybe it'd make her feel better. Maybe it'd work out better than drinking away her sadness. 

And she supposed, that if it didn't, she could just go back to drinking. It's not like liquor would cease to exist if she stopped drinking it. 

"Sharon, honey," Sheila coaxed, "you should think about leaving him. The way you feed into each other isn't good."

Sharon sniffled in response. She hadn't gotten drunk in such a long time. It had been ages since she drank this much. She went on a bender shortly after Stan was born, but it was a month long thing, and tapered off into nothing. Well, nothing expect a revulsion to Tequila, but that seemed like a pretty common thing. 

Lots of people disliked Tequila, but lots of people didn't get black out drunk while on maternity leave. She hadn't made friends with Sheila, yet, not that they were friends, so she hadn't snooped through her business. She was sure she'd have gotten a lecture then, too. 

Sheila probably thought she did this every evening. She didn't. She had worked hard to be clean, to stay clean. She held her head high, even when Randy came home a walking disaster. Even when he took shots of Patron straight from the bottle as he watched the nightly news, she stayed clean. She didn't allow herself to be tempted. 

She didn't know what made last night different. Was he particularly persuasive? He wasn't a good orator, so that seemed unlikely. Was there an occasion? She racked her mind, trying to find the dissolved memories of the night before, but she couldn't. 

Maybe she just slipped up. It seemed possible that she just became overwhelmed with the PTA meetings and the work emails, and everything else that seemed to be cropping up. Drinking would take the edge off, she must have thought.

And in fairness, it did. It took all the edges away. She couldn't remember work that day, or what color Shelly was on in third grade. Was she on orange still? Or had they demoted her to red? What had happened that she felt the need to drink it away.

She didn't know. 

"Sharon," Sheila said, pulling her hand away. "I think you need to see someone." 

"I'm seeing you," Sharon grumbled, propping herself back upright. 

"I don't mean me," she argued, climbing off of the couch as Sharon squinted against the sunlight. The curtains didn't do a good enough job of filtering. It needed to be darker and quieter. Their street was usually silent, but every so often, as she sat in her misery beneath Sheila's gaze, a dog would bark. Who the hell had a dog? 

They were never getting one, she decided. God, that shit was annoying. She couldn't handle the howl of a dog if this was how she was going to live her life. She looked up at Sheila, who hemmed and hawed as she looked at her perfectly manicured fingernails. 

"You need to go to a program," Sheila started, still looking at her nails. Like Sharon wasn't worthy to be looked at, like there was something wrong with her. She'd just had too much to drink, that's all.

And that too much to drink had caused her to neglect her children. They made their own dinner while she was passed out at the table, and then they tucked themselves in, and gotten ready for school the next morning. They had to go to the neighbor to get their. They could have picked the wrong neighbor. They could have walked down the street to the Stotches and Stephen could have killed them, or drugged them, or worse. 

It wasn't just too much to drink, she decided. It was putting her children in danger. 

She nodded to Sheila, robotically.  

"Where would I go?" She asked, running her tongue over the roof of her mouth, in shock that the words had left her mouth. She didn't know the logistics of this situation. Who'd watch the kids? Randy couldn't. 

Randy was just like her, and he'd never go. She didn't even want to bother to ask him. If she was going to rehab, she knew in her bones that she was going alone. 

Not that she had anyone to watch her kids. But on the same coin, she couldn't watch her kids if she kept doing this. 

She was trapped. 

"Fuck," she cursed, letting her head drop into her hands. Her fingers helped diffuse the light that the back of her eyelids couldn't block. How did she do this all the time before? She did this every day she was in college. 

She did it from the time she met Randy to the time she realized she was three and a half months pregnant. Then, after Shelly was born, she went right back to it. Whole blocks of time were missing in her head. She remembered their wedding, because she was sober, but she doubted Randy did. 

She didn't remember their first kiss, or closing on the house, or moving in, or the look on Randy's face when they first met. She vaguely remembered bad mixed drinks, but she couldn't say what they were. What fraternity threw the party? She didn't know. What other men did she sleep with? She didn't know that either. 

If Randy hadn't been so persistent, meeting her at every party and taking her home, she was sure she would have forgotten his name too. What kind of narrative was that to tell her kids? How would she explain to them how Mommy and Daddy met? Eventually a casual at college reply wouldn't be enough. She didn't have the answers they'd want. 

"I know a place," Sheila interrupted her thoughts as the couch sank below her weight. She wrapped an arm around Sharon, who did not look up. She kept her head in her hands, dreading how her children would need more form her. Inevitably, she wouldn't be able to give it. 

"I don't have any money," she groaned. They had enough for their bills, and enough to drink, but there wasn't much left after that. Enough for a small emergency fund she had to constantly protect from Randy's antics. 

"Hush," Sheila said, fiercely, pulling her close to her side. "Don't worry about the money." 

Hah, don't worry about the money. That was easy for her to say with her rich lawyer husband. All she had to do was loaf around the house all day and make dinner. She didn't have a budget she had to balance. She wore designer shoes and drove a nice new car. 

One that had never driven over the mailbox.

"I can't not worry about the money," Sharon said, working her teeth between her lips. She didn't know how people could just not worry about the money. The money had to be paid. And if she didn't have the money, then she just didn't have it. 

"Honey," Sheila sighed, "don't worry," she repeated, articulating the words. The constants popped out of her mouth and echoed around the room. "If you have insurance, they'll help," she cooed. "Don't worry, bubala." Sharon didn't know what that word meant, but as a hand ran through her hair again, while another rubbed her back in a circular motion, she didn't feel the need to ask. 

She doubted her insurance would pay. It wasn't like she had a court order to go. She didn't. And she didn't ever plan on fucking up bad enough to get a court order. 

"You can't keep doing this," Sheila said, a sternness to her voice. "It's bad for your health." 

"I just," Sharon took a deep breath, pulling her head out of her hands to squint in the light from the curtains. "I just slipped up, okay? Randy brought home some wine, and I wanted to enjoy it with him."

"He's not good for you. He's trash. He's muff cabbage," Sheila spat. Sharon titled her head to see Sheila grimacing, like she'd smelled something foul. What was muff cabbage? Sharon didn't have a clue, but it couldn't have been good. "He's going to get you killed. Where will your children be then? With who?" 

Shit, Sharon didn't know. She straightened up further, her back rigid. Who would take care of Shelly and Stan? Her parents? They hadn't even sent a Christmas card this year, let alone spoke with her. Randy's Dad? He was so old he could barely walk, and he was a hateful old bag. That left who? Jimbo? 

Her best option for a guardian of her kids was Jimbo. The very thought sent a shiver down her spine. They'd be good marksmen, she supposed. Shelly and Stan wouldn't be able to read but they'd be able to shoot a squirrel off a bird feeder. 

"I'll watch them while you get some help," Sheila said, out of nowhere. "Kyle just adores Stanley, and Shelly can't be that much trouble." 

Shelly was a human disaster. Their stair banister had teeth marks because Shelly chewed on the wood in a temper tantrum. She peed on a boy's backpack because he made fun of her. She asked Santa last year to strangle her little brother. She was a problem child, not a sweet little angel. She was the embodiment of trouble, and Sharon couldn't help but think whatever sap she'd slept with was probably a sociopath.

"Sheila, I can't," Sharon argued. "I just can't." 

"You can-" 

"I can't," she said, firmer, louder. The words rang in her own ears. There was so much she couldn't do. She couldn't be a doctor, she couldn't be the same level of cutthroat PTA mom, and she couldn't leave her kids for god knows how long to get over her drinking problem. 

It wasn't a real problem, anyways. She wasn't drinking every day; she was just drinking sometimes. And it had been years since she had last drank. Maybe she wouldn't drink again. And if she did, it wouldn't be for another few years. The kids would be older, Shelly in middle school, if she managed to pass third grade, and Stan old enough to fend for himself. It wouldn't be such a disaster this time.

"You can," Sheila pushed, "I am insisting." 

"I can't leave Randy and the kids to their own devices to go to a work retreat for a weekend, let alone the length of treatment." However long treatment would take. How long would it take? Was it like a yoga retreat, where they sunk you in a sweat lodge for a few hours, and had you mediate the rest of the weekend? She'd seen one of those on the news last month. Someone apparently died in the lodge, dehydrated and passed out. Poor woman was left there over night, the whole place steaming.

She didn't want to die. 

She didn't think she wanted to die. 

She only wanted to die sometimes, and only a little bit. Half dead, that's what she wanted. Dead enough to not feel shit, but alive enough to still take care of her kids. That's what needed to happen, right? She needed to live forever to make sure they didn't fuck up too bad, primarily Shelly, even if she didn't want to. 

"Sharon," Sheila's voice was soft, bringing her back to reality. Something wet was dripping down her cheeks, hot and wet. She was crying. 

Why was she crying? She had too much of a headache to cry. It was probably dehydration, she thought as she forced herself off the couch. She walked into the kitchen, careful to step over the broken dishes and cups. She grumbled to herself as a piece of ceramic slid into her barefoot. 

Regardless, she continued through the kitchen, leaving droplets of blood behind her. When she opened up the cabinet to find a glass for some water, they were all gone. The whole shelf where the glasses had been stored slid onto the floor with a clatter. They, presumably she, had ripped the wooden board out of place. 

"What a mess," Sheila said, hands on her hips. Sharon sighed, not giving the conformation of a nod. She knew it was a mess. It was hard to deny. At least she wouldn't have to do dishes for a while. They didn't appear to have any intact dishes. 

She wondered if Randy was hurt as she stuck her head under the kitchen faucet, turning the tap on low to get some water. It splashed into her nose and ran down her throat, but she kept her head down until she drank what she assumed was a glass of water. She gasped for air as she came up, her blouse, wrinkled and stained from sleeping at the table, wet.

"This isn't healthy," Sheila harped, looking around the room.

"Yeah," Sharon shrugged. What was she going to do? Wave her magic wand to clean the mess? He foot ached as she limped back into the living room, leaving a trail of blood on the carpet. If Sheila saw, she didn't mention it. 

"Look," Sheila sat on the couch before her, "come with me to a meeting. At least, at least do that." 

"I can't," Sharon argued. Strangers didn't need to know her business. 

"You can," Sheila said, patting the spot next to her, like Sharon was some kind of dog. "You can, and I think you should. We'll go together, it's not so bad." 

"Why? So you can hear me confess to being a disaster, and then you can relay it to your PTA friends?" 

"No, I'd never," Sheila's voice dropped low. "It's wrong to take advantage of people at their low points. We ought not to gossip." 

Sharon sighed. There were lots of things we ought not to do, but she seemed to do them anyways. She shouldn't have spent her freshman year in college black out drunk, going from stranger to stranger. She shouldn't have gotten pregnant, and she certainly shouldn't have drank while pregnant. 

She shouldn't have married Randy.

She loved him best she could, and she didn't doubt that in his own twisted way, he loved her. 

"I can't." It was a feeble denial, and she knew it was. She knew there was no logical reason why she couldn't go spend an hour of her day sitting with a bunch of burnouts. 

"You don't have to do this," Sheila said, swinging Sharon's foot into her lap. Blood dripped onto her skirt as she used her long nails to pull out the remnants of the dish. It hurt, but Sharon was quiet. It was a pain she had more than earned. If you do stupid things, you get stupid rewards. 

Her Dad used to tell her that when her actions had unintended consequences. Though the words might have sunk in, the meaning obviously had slid right by her. She didn't learn from her mistakes, she just made new ones, bigger ones. As bright as she was, she didn't seem capable of detecting patterns. 

The fear that she wasn't as smart as she once thought nagged at the back of her throat. 

"What else would I do?" She asked, half a laugh and half a sob. It wasn't a pretty noise, but she wasn't pretty. And even, even if she subscribed to Randy's notion that she was attractive, she certainly wasn't attractive at this moment. She still smelt like wine.

Wine and BO.

She grimaced as Sheila swung her foot back around, elevating it on the coffee table. She invited herself upstairs, leaving Sharon with her thoughts for a few moments as she scanned the room. 

The china cabinet was obliterated. Someone, probably her, had taken a lamp, which was also shattered on the dining room table, and swung it into the glass. Every single dish was broken. Even the gravy boat, the one she had argued with Randy that of course they needed a gravy boat, every family had a gravy boat, and they were a family. 

"Jesus Christ," she mumbled. She hoped the kids didn't step through that mess. She was sure they did, but maybe they had been smart enough to put on shoes. She hoped they were. And if they weren't, then hopefully Sheila noticed and gave them first aid. 

"You can't live like this," Sheila said, softly as she returned to the living room, first aid kit in hand. "I'm not going to press it, but I really think you should go, do something." 

Sharon nodded as the antiseptic burned her foot. She took in a sharp breath through her nose, clenching her teeth, as Sheila dabbed more on. It hurt, but she deserved it. At this point, being in physical pain was something she deserved and hopefully something that would teach her a lesson. 

"I'm gonna go, okay?" Sheila said, stinking a bandage that wouldn't stay on the bottom of her foot. "If you want to go to a meeting, come find me." Sharon nodded, knowing that she wouldn't find her. She didn't want to sit with Sheila for an hour as she told the group how badly she'd fucked up. She didn't want to have to share personal details of her love life with Sheila, much less a circle of drunk strangers. 

But, to her surprise, after a few hours of moping on the couch, drinking more water directly from the faucet, and two hours of Jerry Springer, she agreed to go. She rode silently to their destination, and didn't make a peep the whole time.

Not even when Sheila introduced herself as an addict. She sat, in silence, as the room talked about rules and steps, her hangover still pounding behind her eyes. No one in the room forced her to talk. No one forced her to read from the poster on the wall.

No one made her do anything. 

She didn't talk to Sheila on the ride home, opting instead to doze off, hand covering her eyes from the sun. She had so much work to do once she was home. The kids would be home in an hour and she needed to sweep up the broken dishes and toss the booze. 

Sheila waved goodbye as Sharon walked across the yard to her house. 

Randy still wasn't home. 


	12. Old College Try

"We could try for another?" Randy suggested, wrapping his arm around Sharon as they sat on the couch. "I don't hold it against you, not really." 

That was coded language for yes, he certainly held it against her. She had thought Shelly was his. She was so sure. Okay, so she wasn't all that sure, but the  timing seemed to work out, and she couldn't remember any of the other men she'd been with. 

She couldn't believe it. 

He'd snuck her away, apparently. Snuck her out to a doctor to get the test done, and hid the evidence. Mephesto had said she wasn't his, but that doctor was a quack, everyone knew it. He was too old to be reading those kind of tests. It could be wrong, something in her gut gnawed at her. Shelly could still be his.

"Why would I want to do that?" She asked, sipping her wine. He'd brought some home with him, which was never a good sign. He didn't drink wine, not of his own volition, so if he it was in his possession it was a bribe. And usually, she was dumb enough to take that bribe. 

"I mean, I love you," he started, sipping his beer. The light from the living room glinted off of the can as he tossed it back. "I love you, and I'd like to start a family with you." 

"We have a family, Randy!" She snapped. The three of them were a family. He was the one who insisted they get married; the one who insisted she abstain from her abortion. She listened to him, and God if she didn't live to regret it. 

"Yeah, but she's not mine!" He bellowed, seemingly out of nowhere, red in the face. She hoped he didn't just wake her up. She was asleep in her crib upstairs. In a flood of relief, she was able to schedule the moving truck a few days after the move. He should have done that. How could she in good conscious make another baby with someone who couldn't even coordinate dates? 

Well, this would be his first, if the tests were to be believed. Maybe they weren't to be believed. Maybe there was some sort of user error and Shelly was his.

Fuck, how did she screw up like this? How did she ruin her life so spectacularly? She was at least pretty sure she was his, sure enough to agree to their white wedding. Why couldn't she be right about anything? Why wasn't that allowed? 

Goddamn it.

"Hey, hey," he dropped his voice down to his regular speaking volume, rubbing her shoulder. "I shouldn't have yelled, I'm sorry," he cooed, patting her shoulder. "I'm not mad. Don't cry. You don't have to cry, babe." She hadn't even realized when she'd started to cry. Had she been crying this whole time? Maybe. 

How dare he betray her confidence. 

"I do, Randal," she choked out. She'd ruined her life. She made the wrong choice, obviously. She wasn't a doctor, she wasn't even on her way to becoming a doctor. She was a part time receptionist for a plastic surgeon, and wheeling patients out the front door was a close as she ever came to doing anything she'd dreamed. 

"No, don't cry," he repeated. "I'm not mad."

"You sound mad," she sucked up her tears, wincing at the noise her nose made as she attempted to clear it. He had to be mad. There was no situation where he was happy with her after finding out that his daughter wasn't actually his daughter. 

If she wasn't his daughter, whose daughter was she? 

"I'm not mad," he reassured her, though it didn't do much to actually reassure her. She was so certain she'd ruined her whole life, let the whole damn thing go way of the rails. "Stop crying," he said, softly. "Please, stop." 

"I'd stop if I could help it, Randy," she snapped back, crossing her arms over her chest. She sniffled, trying to tamp down the noise, without much success. If she could stop any of this, she would have. There was no way she'd keep doing this bullshit if she had a choice. She didn't.

Her life was locked in on this fucked up railway, and there was no disconnecting the car from these tracks. She was going to be Randy Marshes wife forever. There was no way she'd ever be anything else. Fuck, she had a two year old. People with two year old's don't do things. You never see a woman with a child that young doing anything, besides grocery shopping, and that's not really much to be proud of. Everyone had to grocery shop, which just cemented her knowledge that Mom's only did the bare minimum in society. 

God, how did she get into this mess? 

"Baby," he cooed again. He used to call Shelly that, she thought as she hiccuped back a sob. "Calm down, just stop crying." 

What if he left her? What would she do then? Run back to Tennesee and cry into her parents arms? They weren't happy with the whole situation, and she doubted their willingness to take her back. It's not like she could pay for daycare alone. She'd be destitute.

She'd be like that Liane girl who just showed up into town. She had to be what, seventeen? She had a baby bump, that Sharon was sure of. She'd seen her hanging around the Tenorman's so maybe they knew her, were trying to help her out of a bad situation. She didn't even seem like she had a place to stay. 

That wasn't what Sharon wanted, not at all. 

Maybe, if she agreed to do it over again, then he'd stay. As long as he stayed, she'd be okay. Maybe, he'd even grow to love Shelly like his own. He'd loved her before, so it wasn't out of the picture. It wasn't some half brained idea, if he'd done it before.

"I just want one," he said, as she wiped her face, again. She wiped furiously, the sleeves of her work sweater wet with tears. This was such a disaster. She had made a terrible decision, and in order to try to prop up her first mistake, she had to keep making bad choices. 

"Randy," she warned, voice wavering as she stared at the carpet. She didn't really like carpet, thought it was a hassle to clean, but the vacuum lines in the carpet gave her somewhere to look. The distraction was comforting, even if the harsh polyester fibers weren't. 

"What," he said, indignently, like he was in the right. 

Wait, was he in the right? This was the first time she could remember in one of their fights that he might have been the one holding the high ground. He lived the last three years of his life, assuming that Shelly was his, and Sharon had ripped that rug out from underneath him. Well, she supposed he did it to himself with the test, but it was still a jolt to his system. He had assumed that she was his, and she wasn't. 

If Mephesto was right.

That felt like a pretty big if, but not quite big enough for the situation at hand. More doubt might have been nice in this sort of situation. 

Whose was she if she wasn't his? She didn't even know how to get in contact with these people. Did she just pull out a college year book and start calling men who looked mildly familiar? She'd have to get a phone book for Denver, and maybe they weren't even in Denver. They could have moved anywhere. 

They didn't drop out to take care of a baby. They didn't marry the first man who asked them.

They could be anywhere and there'd be no way to find them. 

"Sharon, I feel like you're not paying attention," he cut into her thoughts. She scoffed, even though she hadn't been. He might have been talking while she thought her options through, but she couldn't be sure. The foundation on which she had built her life was quicksand, how could she be sure about anything?

Was sure even a concept that existed still? 

It didn't feel like it. Not for her anyways. 

"Sharon!" He shouted, shaking her by the shoulders. She shot upright, back pulling away from the couch cushions. She heard a cry from upstairs, or she thought she did. She wasn't sure. She waited a few moments as Randy stared at her stone faced, then heard the crying get louder. 

That was Shelly. She was crying. She got up, forcing her shoulders back down to where they belonged. That was her child, lucky for her maternity didn't work like paternity. 

Unless she'd be switched at the hospital, and her real baby was somewhere else, and was in fact, Randy's. 

That was assinine, and she knew it. They'd given her an ankle tag when she was born, and Sharon had checked it half a dozen times to make sure it was in fact, her baby. She climbed up the stairs, wordlessly.

She did not acknowledge Randy or his requests, and he did not follow her to their- her daughter's room. She didn't like to fight in front of Shelly, not that it was a hard rule. It was hard to abide to that sort of thing when Randy was such a human disaster. 

A human disaster who married her and raised her bastard kid. 

She slowly opened the door, hitting a wall of defending wails from Shelly. She shrugged her shoulders, trying to release the tension before she handled her daughter. She'd read a book that said kids could sense that sort of thing, and though she was pretty sure it was bullshit, now wasn't the time to test those sorts of things. 

"Shhh, shhh," she scooped Shelly into her arms, rubbing her back as she howled. "It's okay, Mama's gotcha," she soothed, going to sit in the rocking chair. It was an old wood, but she'd fixed it up with some paint. It was a nice white now, with the occasional paint chip, but it was character. 

Minor damage was character, and major damage was marrying a shitty man who wasn't her child's father, apparently. 

"Dada," she whimpered, once she'd stopped yelling. Maybe the yelling was better, and she thought, briefly, that she should pinch the skin on her leg, just hard enough to get her to wail again. Wailing was better than asking for her dad. She didn't even know who the fuck that was.  

"It's okay, you're okay," she repeated, rocking back and forth. She continued doing it, even after Shelly settled back into sleep. It was comforting. The false narrative that she'd be okay, that they'd be okay, was a comfort.

They weren't okay. And if she were Randy, if she ever had the upper hand in any of these situations, she would have told herself to go. He had no reason to keep her around, not if the baby wasn't his. He could use his money on things for himself, instead of supporting a family that wasn't his. 

Their whole marriage was lie, wasn't it? 

They had been married under the pretense that she was pregnant with his child. Was  that grounds for an annulment? Where the hell would that leave her? Homeless? It's not like she could just give Shelly away, not this late in the game. She'd grown attached, despite her original reluctance to have children. 

Maybe they could get Section 8? Is that what they'd do? She'd have to move to a new place, maybe Denver, maybe Santa Fe. She'd have to find a new job, and then she'd have to get daycare vouchers. Shelly would spend all of her time in daycare, not just some of it. And they'd both live in a ratty apartment while she worked a dead end job. 

Or she could just have another baby. 

When she laid it out on the table like that, having another baby seemed like the obvious choice. 

"It's alright, sweet girl," she said, stopping on the balls of her feet. She waited, suspended in animation, thinking about her choices, before letting the chair continue moving.

Really, what was another baby? Another baby would give her claim to child support if the whole thing went tits up. She wasn't sleeping around now. Paternity wouldn't be a problem. 

And technically, she hadn't been cheating then. They weren't an item, so she couldn't have been cheating. She didn't do anything wrong. It felt like she did, but in reality, she hadn't. 

She was not in the wrong. She was okay. 

And having another child wouldn't be wrong, either. It'd just be securing her security, not only for herself, but for her daughter. She ran a thumb over her daughters hair, pushing it behind her ear, before slowly lowering her into her crib. 

She considered going back to the rocking chair, and rocking herself until she felt better, but she didn't think that time would ever come. She didn't have all night. She had work in the morning, and God knows it was probably already 10 PM.

Instead she shrugged her shoulders once more, trying to shake off the stress before going back to see Randy. She didn't think he picked up on those kinds of ques, but she didn't want to make anymore silly mistakes. No, she needed to have a clear head for this conversation, lest she be talked into more than she was willing to give. 

One more child, that's all she would do. She'd repeat the process once more, and then that was that. That kid would be his, and he could say to his buddies at work that he had the perfect two child household. Which he would have, because there would be two children.

Everything would look fine from the outside, and that's exactly what she needed to happen. As long as it looked okay to a passerby, it'd be fine. Having two kids would help her save face, anyways. Everyone here seemed to have more than one. It'd be easier to blend in with two children. She'd look the part of perfect suburban mother, even if she didn't feel it. 

She lurched down the stairs, trying to avoid the squeaky steps. It was a new house, and she wasn't sure which ones were the noise makers, but from the way it sounded as she rejoined Randy, she was pretty certain it was all of them. 

"She's asleep," she said, somberly. He didn't care. That wasn't his child, why would he care? Would she care for someone else's kid? She doubted it. She wasn't maternal, not really. She wasn't any of the things she wanted to be, or the things she was expected to be. 

Maybe a second child would help her meet at least one of those markers. Maybe there was some joy to being seen as having it all, like one thing followed the other. If she seemed like she had the perfect white picket fence life, then she'd start to feel that way. 

"Good to hear," he responded, after entirely too much silence. He drew out his phrase, staring her in the eyes. Was he looking for something? And if he was, was he finding it? She hoped not, on both counts. 

She walked toward the couch, then thought better of sitting next to him again. They had a chair, and if she sat there, she'd be alone. There would be no way for him to weasel his way in and wrap his arm around her and make demands. 

If he was going to make demands, then they shouldn't be dressed up as anything but what they were.

She'd have to stop drinking, again, and she wasn't so sure she wanted to do that. She enjoyed drinking, or at least some of the time she enjoyed it. Every night that she had a drink, she enjoyed it at the start. This time she'd have to stop for the whole nine months, and even before hand. She'd have to stop drinking in preparation for being pregnant. 

She could do it, she'd done it before, but she didn't really want to. Being sober while Randy was intoxicated wasn't fun. It was miserable, and highlighted everything that was wrong with their marriage. She'd have to sit and think with her thoughts for the next year or so, while he just got to drink them away. 

But what choice did she have? 

"We can try again," she said, breaking the silence between them. It was uncomfortable as she watched his face, searching for signs of his emotions. He took a drink of a new beer he must have gotten when she was upstairs. 

She wasn't drinking, not yet. She supposed now wouldn't be a good time to start for the evening. She supposed now was as good a time to stop as any. She couldn't remember the last thing she drank. Was it one of his beers last night when she ran out of wine? It had been lukewarm, left in the back of his car for too long.

Eventually, he put the beer down, and smiled. Like he'd known she'd make what he thought was the right choice, if she was just given a little space. She thought for a second that maybe it was all a lie to get her to change her stance on another child. Maybe he'd manipulated her into saying yes. She couldn't be sure this was true, but on the chance it was, it felt wrong to ask for proof. 

She knew she had seen other men during the time span of conception, not that she recalled their faces, but she knew they existed. The possibility had always been there, and she'd undersold it. She hadn't been frank with him, and this was her punishment, being pushed further into a role she didn't want. 

Sure, she was a good mom, it just felt so unimportant. Maybe it'd feel more meaningful with two children. Maybe baby number two would seal up the cracks in their relationship. If Randy had a child he was sure was his, maybe he'd mellow out a little. As much as she liked drinking with him, she could tell it was becoming a problem.

Maybe a second child would put that in perspective for him.

"I hope it's a boy," he said, before taking another drink of his beer. 

"Yeah," she said, trying to smile. The muscles in her cheeks pulled her lips up, but it didn't feel right. The skin felt too tight, and it felt too mechanical. "Yeah, a boy," she let the words sit in her mouth for a bit, feeling them. 

She didn't like the way they felt, but she'd doubted she'd like the feeling of the word homeless, divorce, or single parent, any better. She didn't like the way any of this felt, but sometimes it was just time to put on her big girl panties and suck it up. 

"So should we start?" He asked, crushing his can. She wanted to explain that that's not how it worked, but at the same time she didn't want to talk to him at all. She didn't want to explain the intricacies of birth control. It'd be easier just to let him fuck her on the couch. 

And that's exactly what she did. She laid their, mostly limp, as she smelled the beer heavy on his breath. She wanted a beer, but she knew it wasn't something she'd get to have for a year, at least. She didn't even like beer. 

But beer made it easier to tune out his sloppy kissing and fumbling hands as he unbuttoned her slacks. Beer could have numbed the feeling of his hands roughly pushing up her breasts. It could have glossed over the force of which he pulled down her panties, and it could have passed the three minutes he thrust into her faster.

Beer helped with a lot of things. 


	13. Oceanographer's Choice

The day had started great. Randy got a promotion, and who didn't like a promotion, especially one that meant more money. They weren't poor, but the money wasn't good. They were young with two kids, of course an extra four hundred bucks a month would be helpful.   
  
His boss even gave him a fancy bottle of wine to celebrate with, some French name in scrawling letters that he couldn't even hope to read. Chateau something. It was always a chateau. He didn't even knew what that meant, besides that the wine was too expensive for him. If Sharon still drank, then maybe he would have spoiled her on occasion, but she didn't.  
  
She hadn't touched any of it since Stan was a baby. She got lame, as the kids would say. Randy was still cool though. He still drank and listened to whatever was on the radio and watched late night television. He wasn't a sell out square.   
  
Maybe he could pull Sharon out of that rut. Maybe a glass of fancy wine would loosen her up, and bring her back to the land of what was hip and cool. Did the kids still say hip and cool? He hadn't seen it on Saturday Night Live that he could remember. He taped them, so he could watch them later, usually Sunday mornings.   
  
"Sharon," he called out, stepping through the threshold of the house with the bottle of wine tucked under his arm. She didn't reply, so he yelled her name, louder.   
  
"What!" She yelled back, seemingly from the kitchen. Was she making dinner? He had hoped to take the family out to celebrate, to Chili's for some ribs or Olive Garden for some pasta, but if the dinner was started, it was started.  
  
They could do something this weekend.   
  
"I'm home," he offered, walking into the kitchen. He set the wine down on the middle of the table, the centerpiece it deserved to be. It was a pretty bottle, with gold lettering and cellophane wrapped around an oversize cork. Was it champagne?   
  
It'd make sense to get champagne for a promotion, wouldn't it? Randy wasn't a wine connoisseur, mostly a beer man, but he could tell it was special. Heavier than usual, like they'd used something weightier, more opaque. It might have just been the wire bracket holding the cork in place.   
  
"Great," Sharon said. She didn't sound happy to see him. Hell, he could have drank the whole bottle alone in the car, he didn't have to bring it in to celebrate. She could be excited, instead of holding her face over a boiling pot of water.   
  
"Guess who got that promotion?" He decided to try to help the situation along. Once she realized what was happening, then she'd be into it. No wife could be unhappy about a promotion. Never on I Love Lucy did Lucy complain about a promotion. And it's not even like this promotion had a downside. It didn't. He didn't have to change facilities, and he didn't have to work extra hours. It was a win win, and she should treat it like it was.   
  
"Nelson?"   
  
"No, me. I got the promotion," he said, pulling back a chair from the kitchen table. The wood scraped against the linoleum as he sat down, pulling himself square with the table.   
  
"Great." It didn't sound like it was great. It sounded like he had told her that she needed dental work.

 

How was she not excited about this?

"It is," he pushed. "It is great."   
  
"Guess who bit someone during music class?" She groaned, stirring the pot beneath her. Something bubbled over onto the stove top, as Randy rose from his chair to retrieve a beer from the fridge.   
  
It was okay to mix beer and wine, wasn't it? There was no order rule, not that he'd ever been taught. And he was an expert on drinking.   
  
And according to his promotion, also an expert on geology.  
  
He went back to his seat, watching Sharon scurry around the kitchen, stirring and cursing. She didn't ask for his help, so he didn't give it. He just propped his feet up on the chair across from him, and took a drink. It was cold, but not as cold as they were down at Skeeters.   
  
Maybe he could use his raise to get a better fridge. Or better yet, a keg.   
  
"Can we get a keg?" He asked aloud. Sharon let out a strangled cry as more of whatever was in the pot bubbled onto the gas flame.   
  
"So you can drink and not help me?" She said, pulling the pot off the heat and onto a trivet on the counter. He thought trivets were dumb, but he knew better than to complain about things she thought were necessary.   
  
She didn't follow the same rule, unfortunately.   
  
"Did you hear I got a promotion?" He asked. Maybe she just didn't understand. Sometimes, when women were stressed, they just couldn't comprehend things. She might have just been overloaded, and that's why she wasn't excited. She should have been excited for him.   
  
"I'm burning dinner," she grumbled, poking at whatever was in the pot with a fork. "I read this recipe in Better Homes and Garden's and I don't know how I messed it up, but I did."   
  
"Who gives a shit about that?" Randy pouted from the table, elbows propping his head up.  
  
"You should," Sharon let the fork clatter against the side of the pot, then plummet into the liquid with a plop. "It's your dinner."   
  
"I sort of wanted to go out to eat, anyways," he laughed, sitting up as straight as he could so he could look at the burners.  
  
"And you couldn't call ahead and say that?" Sharon said, turning to glare at him. It was kind of hot, in a Kill Bill kind of way. So Sharon wasn't Uma Thurman, but she was still hot. If someone was going to kill him, maybe it'd be best if it was her. It'd be hottest that way.  
  
"I didn't get my promotion until 3," Randy said, watching as she knelt down level with the oven, then peaked through the door. It smelt burnt, but he knew better than to comment on her cooking. It was usually awful, but apparently they didn't have the money to eat out every night. He felt like the money should have been there, but it was gone.   
  
"Well, you could have called me, I get home at 4, you know this." A nag. She was always such a nag. Leave it to her to suck the fun right out of his promotion. "I started dinner so we're going to eat dinner." She cursed a bit under her breath before tending to the pot again.   
  
He watched silently as she used a new fork to fish out the one that had dropped. She spoke to herself in a whisper, never quite loud enough for Randy to make out anything besides the occasional harsh consonant.   
  
"God, I burnt it all to Hell," she groaned, still poking at whatever was in the pot. "Ugh, there go my plans. I guess we can eat out, though, since you got that promotion. You did get a promotion, right? You only said it ten times."  
  
"I was just excited, geeze," Randy huffed.   
  
"Well, I'm just tired," Sharon countered. "Tired and stressed."   
  
"I brought home so wine. Fancy stuff, a gift from the boss. We could pop it open, and then have ourselves a nice night."   
  
"I don't drink," she said through clenched teeth. She hadn't given up on fixing whatever mess she'd made of the food.   
  
"Maybe that's the problem," he whispered underneath his breath.   
  
"What was that?" She asked, immediately taking up the defensive. She was so ready to go up in arms, a hairpin trigger.   
  
"It's just that, you know, sometimes, sometimes you can be sort of well," he gulped, dropping his voice to barely above a whisper, "you know, a bitch."   
  
"Randy," she warned, snarling as she turned to look at him. "Randy, just be quiet."   
  
"Some wine just might help. It might help you relax. You don't have to drink all of it, just a little. A little might help," he said, busying himself with unscrewing the wire holding the cork in place. He dug through the junk drawer for a corkscrew, returning to his seat wordlessly when he found it.   
  
Once he finally got the damn thing open, white bubbles poured from the top like they do in the ads, he let out a little laugh.  He went to the cabinet as she continued to try to save whatever she had tried to make for dinner. He glanced down as he was searching for wine glasses, and realized very quickly it wasn't salvageable. He couldn't find any wine glasses, but he settled for two coffee mugs, filling each to the top.  
  
Wordlessly, he put the full cup in front of her, placing it in the space between the pot of water and the pot of burnt sauce.   
  
At the very least, their night could be salvaged.   
  
Before he knew it, he was drinking out of a #1 Dad mug, while her mug, some atrocity covered in cats, was left untouched. She stood over the pot, still tinkering with it, as he gulped the wine down. It had a foam, so it had to be champagne, right? That was carbonation, or some shit. It had to be.   
  
It wasn't sweet, but it was alcohol, so he drank it down. The worst part about wine, in Randy's experience, was it was a liquid that made your mouth feel more dry. He supposed that was a reason to keep drinking, he chuckled to himself, as he refilled his cup. The glass from the lip of the bottle clanked against the ceramic as he topped himself off.   
  
"You're drinking more already?" Sharon spun around, hands on her hips, judging him. That's what she always did. This was just an average day to her. There was no good news in this household, just poorly behaved children. Not that Shelly was his, because she most certainly was not. Some other man was the reason she kicked other little kids in the crotch and pulled hair and spit on strangers lunch trays.   
  
"Randy! You're spilling it!"   
  
Oh, he supposed he was. He flipped the bottle upright.  He watched the bubbles fizzle out on the table, as the foam in his glass flattened. It wasn't that much spilled, the bottle was still at least 3/4ths full, almost as heavy as it was when he popped the cork. He took a sip, grimacing. 

"Aren't you going to wipe that mess up?" He put the mug back on the table, as she complained. Before his hand had even left the handle, she was back on it. "You never help me, Randy. You just come home, and you drink. You sit here and drink, and make these huge messes, and I'm just supposed to clean it up. I'm like you're maid Randy, and I'm getting real sick of it."   
  
"Do rich people offer champagne to their maids?" He asked. He didn't know. He figured they didn't, but on the off chance they might. He had some cover for claiming he wasn't being sarcastic, and that was all he needed. He had learned in their marriage, that the high ground didn't have to be a lot of space, just enough to stand dry.   
  
"Don't even start with me!" She snapped. She turned back toward the pot, running her hands through her short hair. The hair she'd cut off without his knowledge or permission. He'd liked her long hair. It was one of her prettier features, and she'd just chopped it off without thinking. There wasn't even a conversation, because he would have said no. She knew he didn't like it. She knew, and she did it anyway.   
  
That's who she was as a person. She knew things, like paternity and what he liked, and she just did whatever, because she could. She functioned on her own planet, unwilling see what he was interested in. She was a benevolent dictator, except when she wasn't.  
  
He took another drink, swishing it around in his mouth. His tongue pushed it through his teeth, dribbling a little through his lips, before swallowing. Eventually, in the silence between them, Sharon brought the mug to her lips.   
  
"God, I forgot how gross this shit is," she laughed. "I don't know how I ever did it."  
  
"I know, right?" Randy relaxed, letting his shoulders fall back into their natural place. "I think it was mostly will power and determination. I always liked that about you."   
  
"It's not as bad as my first drink, I guess," she teased, turning to smile at him. God, she was pretty. Even with that dyke haircut, she was pretty. She might have been prettier with long hair that flowed over his shoulders, but he still had the prettiest wife. He took another drink, smiling as he did it. Of course, the smile broke the seal on the mug, causing some to drip onto his shirt.   
  
Spilling a bit while drinking was to be expected. He spilled every time he drank; he was sure that everyone did. He smoothed his hand over the spot, while Sharon giggled.   
  
"You're such a putz."   
  
"God, where'd you pick that up? Sheila?" Randy coughed into his cup. He emptied it, again, then when to refill it. "That's a really Jewy thing to say."   
  
"Randy," she scoffed, but burst into a fight of laughter. "I mean, I guess it is." She drank some more, then came back, pouring herself a refill.  
  
This was good. A little alcohol would loosen her up, and they could have a nice night. It had been too long since they had a nice evening, so this was way overdue. If champagne was the only thing that it cost to have a pleasant conversation, maybe he'd bring home a bottle every day. He figured that'd eat into his raise pretty quick, so maybe just on Fridays.   
  
If just Fridays were good, then they could handle being together until Stan was grown.   
  
He'd take just Fridays. 


	14. Alpha Rats Nest

Stan was the child who had a traditional wedding. His parents didn't need to know that Wendy was pregnant. They didn't need the real reason to the end of their long engagement. Stan wasn't sure he really wanted to marry her, but it seemed like the right thing to do.   
  
He couldn't leave her alone with a baby. Even if they were in their late twenties, having a baby alone seemed cruel. Anyways, he loved her. He did. They wouldn't have off and on dated for this long if they weren't in love. They wouldn't have been engaged.   
  
Love was enough. His mom told him that, once upon a time, and he wasn't sure if it was true, but his folks were still together.  
  
Thirty years.   
  
He'd be lucky to get as many, he thought as he patted his suit pocket for the flask he'd filled this morning. Vodka, just in case he spilled.  
  
He didn't spill any though. He drank slowly, careful to savor every drop. it was just something to take a bit of the edge off, calm his nerves. He felt the warmth travel through him as Kyle smiled at him.  
  
"Congrats, dude," Kyle smiled, straightening out his pocket square. He was anal like that, and for once, Stan was happy for that kind of precision. He wanted it to be perfect for Wendy. A fairy tale wedding for a fairy tale couple.   
  
Preferably a fairy tale where they don't die miserably by a witch or a curse. Maybe a Disney version of a fairy tale, not the real deal.   
  
"Thanks," Stan said over his flask. He took another sip before tightening the top back on. He needed discipline for this day. It was a special day and he didn't want to be too drunk to remember it; he just wanted to be drunk enough to enjoy it. "It's a big deal, I guess."   
  
"You guys have been practically married since we were kids," Kyle teased, finally happy with the placement. He pulled his hands back, and smoothed out his dress pants. "It's still cool. It's cool that it's finally happening."   
  
"Says you," Stan snorted. "You haven't had three dates with the same girl, ever."   
  
"Hey, they just weren't right for me," Kyle sighed. "I have other things to think about."   
  
"Hey, if you don't settle down soon, everyone is going to think you're like Tweek and Craig," Stan teased.   
  
"They'll think I'm super active on Tinder?" Kyle tilted his head, like he didn't understand Stan's implications. It wasn't that hard. If you don't settle down with a woman soon enough, everyone would think you're gay. He didn't think that Kyle was picked by the Japanese, but who knew. Maybe.

"No dude, they'll think you're queer," Stan laughed. He paused, tongue between his teeth. "Wait, is queer the PC term? Are we allowed to say queer?"   
  
"Dude, I think the whole implication of assuming sexuality is not PC," Kyle argued. "But it's not important. What's important is you're getting married and I've got to make sure you look okay. I promised Bebe, on behalf of Wendy." He smoothed out a section of Stan's hair, patting it down the lay flat on his forehead. His hand lingered a bit longer than necessary, and Stan's eyebrows knitted up as butterflies erupted in his stomach.  
  
Bad nerves. Everyone gets them on their wedding day. Nothing to worry about.  
  
"You look great, Stan," Kyle said, biting back a smile. His eyes looked sad. Was he jealous? He couldn't quiet read the emotion on his face. Was Kyle upset? What was there to be upset about?  
  
"Dude, you'll find someone," Stan reassured him. "You're great."  
  
"I know I'm great," Kyle snapped. What the fuck was wrong with him? Could whatever the hell it was wait a week? He hoped so. "Sorry, sorry," he exhaled through his nose and ran a hand through his hair, getting it stuck. He yanked it forward, then smoothed it all back into place. "High stress, you know?"   
  
"You're not the one getting married," Stan laughed, but he nodded. He did know. They were telling everyone they were going to Cabo, but in reality they were taking a week off and camping inside their apartment. Wendy didn't want to go anywhere while pregnant. She didn't feel well, and that wasn't her fault. They could do a honeymoon later. Maybe they'd go to Cabo then.   
  
He didn't really care where they went.  
  
He didn't really care to get married.   
  
But she was pregnant, and this was the right thing to do. He'd pieced together that this was what Dad did for Mom, so it seemed only fair to keep that string of honor going. She shouldn't be forced to bear and raise a child without a solid foundation.   
  
Not that he was particularly solid, because he wasn't. Lord, he was a wreck. He patted his suit for the flask again, taking another drink. Once the silver top was screwed on tightly, he made a move to put it back. It was almost placed back in his pocket, when he decided that he needed more.   
  
"You okay, dude?" Kyle asked, waving a hand in front of his face. He took a few moments to recognize it, blinking blankly until snapping back to reality. He took another drink, just for good measure. "I think you've had enough," he cautioned.   
  
"I'll know when I've had enough," he spat back.   
  
"Don't do this today," Kyle pleaded, turning towards the mirror to adjust his own bow tie. Why had Stan agreed to bow ties? They didn't look cool; they looked dweeby. And it's not like his other groomsman, Cartman, with his portly frame, was well served by the article of clothing. He remembered at the first fitting that Cartman looked especially round with one, but who gave a fuck, it was only Cartman.   
  
"Don't do what," he said, delayed, taking another drink. "What am I not doing?"   
  
"You know," Kyle frowned at him, knitting his eye brows as Stan screwed the cap back on. He once again, thought better of it, and decided to drink. "That," he said with a disgruntled grown. "I promised Wendy you'd be sober for this."   
  
"That was a dumb thing to promise," Stan said, after swallowed his drink. "And it's not like I'm drunk," he wasn't, not even close. He didn't even think he had enough of a buzz to stand there in front of their family and friends. Dedicating your life to someone was a big deal, even if it was just a slapdash ceremony in their local church.   
  
He wasn't sure he was ready for that kind of commitment.   
  
How could you ever know you were ready?   
  
He'd thought to ask his dad, but that was fruitless. He should have know that it would culminate in a drunken game of darts at Skeeter's, and that he'd have to wrestle his father's keys away and walk him home in the snow. He didn't get any good information, not really. He'd already known how the reverse cowgirl worked.   
  
He didn't need the image of his wrinkly parents performing it.   
  
Gross.   
  
"Dude, just cut it out," Kyle said, shaking him from his thoughts. The flask was at his lips again, and he hadn't even noticed it. He took another drink, and was surprised when he took the last gulps. He'd already drained the thing, it was at least supposed to last until the reception.   
  
They'd rented out the community center, and his dad was in charge of securing the booze. They contract they'd signed said no alcohol, but it was only a two hundred dollar deposit. If they kept it, it was still cheaper than having it at Skeeter's. He trusted his dad, he really did, but just in case he'd sent Kenny to supervise the whole ordeal.   
  
Kenny would make sure they had enough to drink. Maybe he could call Kenny right now, and get a refill before this whole shindig went down. Kenny was a good pal, and they had an hour before it started. An hour was enough time for Kenny to get something from his cabinet, run here, and maybe even exchange a few calming words before the ceremony.   
  
Maybe even enough time to smoke a joint. 

"Can I have my phone?" Stan asked Kyle, after patting his pockets. He'd asked Kyle to hold it this morning, he was afraid he'd lose it, or that the ringer would go off during the ceremony. Wendy would have never let him live that down if that did indeed happen.   
  
"For what?" He asked, hands on his hips. It looked gay, it really did. Was Kyle gay? No way. If he was gay, he'd have said something. He hadn't ever said anything like that. They were best friends, he would have told him.   
  
Christ, he didn't have time to go on these tangents. He needed Kenny and weed, not to question his best friends sexual preferences.   
  
"Just give me my phone," he said, reaching for the flash again. He had it all the way to his lips before he remembered that it was empty. He pretended to drink from it, to save face. He didn't need to look like an idiot on his wedding day.   
  
"Who are you going to call?" Kyle asked, hands still on his hips. "Wendy said not to bother her."   
  
"I'm not gonna call Wendy, and I'm just gonna send a text."   
  
"Not to Wendy you're not," Kyle huffed, digging around in his pocket, then turning around to his bag, which was almost like a purse. That was a gay thing, right? If a man had a bag, then he was gay.   
  
Why did he even care if Kyle was gay? He was getting married, and he had bigger problems. Was this just his mind trying desperately to distract him from the terror of committing your life to another human being forever? Kyle handed him his phone, while he stared ahead, open mouthed. He closed his lips, then licked them, and shot Kenny an SOS text.   
  
Kenny would come through. He knew the value of getting cross-faded. Not that he was going to get messy, because they weren't, not before the wedding. Wendy didn't want him to be a mess at the reception, either, but it was their wedding, they'd only do it once.   
  
Her not being able to partake was unfortunate, but no reason for him to miss out on every fun experience. It was a big party in his honor, and he couldn't skip that kind of thing. It'd have been rude.   
  
"Dude, are you ready?" Kyle asked, straightening Stan's bow tie, again.  
  
It wasn't time for the wedding yet, he still had about thirty minutes before they had told people to even start showing up. And knowing the town, he figured everyone would be at least fifteen minutes late.   
  
"Yeah, sure," he said with a shrug, looking down at his phone. Kenny hadn't gotten back to him, not yet. He kept his head buried until a message popped up on the screen.   
  
_Sorry, Kyle said no_  
  
"What the fuck," Stan groaned, rubbing his forehead. "Kyle."   
  
"What? I didn't do anything," Kyle said, taking a step back. Had he been in his personal space this whole time? Why didn't Stan notice or care? Was he just accustomed to having Kyle there?   
  
"Dude," Stan groaned, trying to think of something to tell Kenny that would get him a refill. He didn't want to do this sober.   
  
Maybe he just didn't want to do this.   
  
No, that was no way to think about marrying the mother of his child. This was something not only wanted to do, it was something he had to do. He had to marry Wendy, and that was fine. They got along great. They were childhood sweethearts after all.   
  
Sure, they didn't like the same sorts of movies, and she didn't like video games. And he thought that baking was the worst hobby on the face of the planet, but they could get through these kinds of issues. He'd watched his parents get through differences in opinion, and if they could do it, so could he.   
  
"What?" Kyle snapped, tilting the phone into his view. "Oh, yeah, I told Kenny no, like last week."   
  
"Why?" Stan groaned, patting his pocket for the flask. It was empty, and he knew it was empty, but he unscrewed it and tried to take a drink anyways. It gave him something to do with his hands, and there was always the off chance that he misremembered it being empty.  
  
"Because Wendy doesn't want you to be sloppy drunk on your wedding."   
  
"Fuck Wendy," he said it without thinking. He meant it though, he meant it. Fuck Wendy, and fuck this wedding. He didn't want to do this. The knot in his stomach told him that this was a bad idea. If she wasn't going to let him drink before the wedding, was she going to start cutting out his drinking everywhere?   
  
They used to drink together. That was one of the few things that they had in common. They both liked to go to the bar, or a party, or sit in front of the TV, and drink. If they didn't have that, then what did they have?   
  
"Dude," Kyle said, tone warning. "I get your tense, but not cool."   
  
"I don't even know that we should get married," Stan complained, tipping his flask back again. Maybe if he got cold feet, at the very least, Kyle would allow Kenny to bring something up.   
  
"You should get married," Kyle laughed. "You're childhood sweethearts. It's like a shitty Hallmark movie."   
  
"Yeah, emphasis on the shitty part."   
  
"Come on," Kyle said, stifling a laugh. "You're gonna have a baby. That sort of shit is exciting."   
  
"Is it?" Stan asked, exhaling loudly. "Or is it terrifying?"   
  
What if the kid wasn't his? He didn't think Wendy had cheated on him, but he knew that Shelly was only his half sister. He couldn't believe that his mom cheated on his dad, but apparently it was true. Randy had told him that she had an affair, that they were already married, and what was he going to do, divorce her for getting knocked up by another guy.   
  
He said he knew immediately.   
  
Maybe Stan would know immediately, too. He could just look at the baby, and if it wasn't his he could get the whole thing annulled. He looked up annulments online, and that's how they worked. If she misrepresented herself, then he could get out of it.   
  
"Terrifying and exciting are the same thing," Kyle joked. "And we'll be cool, it'll be like we've always been, except you'll have a baby."   
  
"So nothing like it's always been," Stan groaned. God, he needed more to drink. 

"Oh shut up," Kyle teased, "you've just got some nerves, that's all."  
  
"What if I'm making mistake?" Stan asked. If he had drank just a touch more, then maybe he wouldn't have these questions swirling around in his head. If he drank enough, he shut off that part of his brain. If he drank too much, then he shut the whole thing down.   
  
That was fine, too. Maybe that'd be a good way to go about this.   
  
"You're not making a mistake," Kyle reassured him. He always did that. Wendy wasn't his reassuring partner, it was Kyle. Stan picked at the skin on his fingers to stop him from grabbing for the flask. If he kept it like a toddler with a blanket, people would start to think he had a problem.   
  
It wasn't a comfort object; it was a comfort tool. They were different. He didn't depend on drinking, it just made his life easier.   
  
People can get buy without cars, but they don't want to. Same with electricity and plumbing. No one ever gets called out for loving their plumbing too much.   
  
"What if," Stan started the phrase, and in completely uncharacteristic fashion, Kyle let him continue on his tangent. "What if," he said, taking another breath. "What if we're not soulmates."   
  
Kyle didn't respond. Kyle always interjected his opinions in crucial moments, and here he was, half drunk, but not drunk enough to numb it out, and Kyle was just letting him talk.   
  
"What if we're not soulmates, and my soulmate is waiting for me. What if because I get married, I miss a better chance? What if I could have had a great life, but then I go and just have an okay life with Wendy."   
  
It was silent. Stan at least expected to hear Kyle hmm and haw over the prospects. He wasn't. He was just standing there, stone faced with a half smile. He fought the urge to make a noise, to break the stillness between the two of them. He wasn't too far gone to miss that this was an important moment. For one, this was their last time talking as bachelors.   
  
Well, Kyle would be a bachelor still. Maybe Kyle would be a bachelor forever.   
  
"I think, if you did have a soulmate, whatever that is," Kyle cleared his throat, adjusting his bow tie, "then you might have already met them. And if it didn't click, then it didn't." He looked down, then smiled and shrugged. "You and Wendy are good together."   
  
"We are," Stan said, cautiously. They were happy. At least some of the time, they were happy. No one is happy all of the time. Stan never met someone he was constantly enamored by.   
  
Not even Kyle, though Kyle came close.  
  
"Holy shit," Stan pulled at the flask, tipping it into his mouth without removing the cap. It was empty and sealed, but maybe the motion would calm him. Like people who smoke sucking lollipops while they quit. If he could just get the oral fixation, then maybe this moment would be manageable. "We need to talk."   
  
"No, we don't."   
  
"No, we need to-"   
  
"Stan, just go get married, okay?"   
  
When it came to big decisions, Stan always listened to Kyle. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end of our journey. Hope the few of yall who read this, enjoyed.

**Author's Note:**

> You can talk to me on tumblr at PBJell. (One day I'll remember how to do hyperlinks)


End file.
